http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/ Engadget Comments for Open access: everything you wanted to know but were afraid to ask http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2008 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/Feb 5th 2008 12:37PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/Feb 5th 2008 12:38PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/Feb 5th 2008 12:53PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/Feb 5th 2008 3:44PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/Feb 6th 2008 7:27PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/Feb 5th 2008 12:42PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/Feb 5th 2008 12:43PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/Feb 5th 2008 12:43PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/Feb 5th 2008 12:44PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/Feb 5th 2008 4:52PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/Feb 5th 2008 4:55PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/Feb 5th 2008 5:11PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/Feb 5th 2008 6:45PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/

idiot]]>Feb 5th 2008 8:11PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/Feb 5th 2008 12:47PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/Feb 5th 2008 12:52PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/Feb 5th 2008 1:00PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/Feb 5th 2008 1:39PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/Feb 5th 2008 4:22PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/Feb 5th 2008 12:53PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/
Whlie the 700Mhz spectrum is indeed ideal for urban settings, it has a very high range, because of this anybody that adopts the 700MHz spectrum will be limited in the amount of cell sites they can place in a given area. Because of this, capacity becomes limited. Thats the trade-off between range and capacity, because the larger area you cover with one site reduces the ratio of available space:maximum number of sites.

So it's not really a holy grail.]]>Feb 5th 2008 12:55PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/That can be mitigated somewhat by the shape of your cell. For example, everyone knows about the classic interlocking hexagon cell designs. That's not caused by a circular area, that's caused by the center of the hexagon having 6 outwardly facing antennas that each cover a 60 degree angle. Think of it like a pie. In the classic six sided cell, it's a pie cut into six pieces.

Most cell carriers, however, do NOT do that. They use 4 or 5 antennas (making square or pentagon shaped cells) in order to save money ... and also reducing their capacity within the square or pentagon shaped cell. The areas with really good capacity are ones where the carrier has actually gone ahead and used 6 antennas per cell. Capacity of the cell == capacity of each antenna transmitter * number of triangles in the cell (where each triangle is 1 directional antenna).

You could, in theory, though, use narrower triangles, making octagonal or other similarly shaped cells (9, 10, 12, or more, sided polygons). This would mean more triangles per cell, increasing the capacity of the cell. This might compensate for the larger radius of the cell. Obviously, though, the theory has a practical limit on how narrow the triangles can actually be. But, if I was having to deal with larger radius cells, I'd certainly look into just how narrowly I can focus my antennas.
]]>Feb 5th 2008 1:23PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/
all in all less towers dont mean less signal just more overlap]]>Feb 5th 2008 2:11PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/
You are the one mistaken...you need to look into telecommunications theory. You can't have overlap like you are suggesting (not to mention that you'd be wasting money by doing so) , and a smaller coverage area means you can have more cell towers which means you can have more capacity. 5 towers covering the same area as 3 towers would prove to be superior because you have more capacity. For initial development of a network the 700Mhz spectrum is nice because you don't need as many towers to build out your network, but in the long term you lose out when you need more capacity and you can't you can't use as many towers.

But like I said, its a trade-off, and its certainly cheaper to build out the network in this case, there are just some long term issues *shrugs*.

@John

That's right, you could mitigate the problem to a certain degree by doing what you say, but there's increased cost involved and it would be cheaper/better in the long run to have more cell sites.]]>Feb 5th 2008 3:56PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/Feb 5th 2008 8:08PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/Feb 5th 2008 12:59PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/Feb 5th 2008 1:26PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/Feb 5th 2008 10:06PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/
Now that that is settled, doesn't the open access rule apply to whomever bought above $4 billion? And whats more, WiMax is the way its going down in the future anyway.]]>Feb 5th 2008 1:00PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/Feb 5th 2008 1:05PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/
http://whydoeseverythingsuck.com/2008/01/700mhz-spectrum-not-so-great-for.html
]]>Feb 5th 2008 1:05PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/Feb 5th 2008 1:36PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/
The lower frequency gives a stronger signal deep in buildings and far out places.]]>Feb 5th 2008 1:46PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/Feb 5th 2008 1:55PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/
I requested this last week and now you deliver. You guys rock. Now I've got something to point people to to explain.]]>Feb 5th 2008 1:05PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/Feb 5th 2008 1:06PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/Feb 5th 2008 1:17PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/
The communications protocol for this Frequency hasn't been established yet. There's nothing that says that the new spectrum has to be a GSM network. It could become LTE or Wimax or something else entirely.

Another reason why the iPhone may not necessarily work as you described
]]>Feb 5th 2008 2:02PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/Feb 5th 2008 2:27PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/Feb 5th 2008 1:13PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/Feb 5th 2008 1:26PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/Feb 5th 2008 1:27PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/**just like my girl]]>Feb 5th 2008 1:19PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/Feb 5th 2008 1:51PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/Feb 6th 2008 3:20AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/
Aren't we all sick of Verizon crippling their phones, forcing you to use PictureMail to get a photo off? Or AT&T refusing to allow any other cell phone to have WiFi because it will cut into their iPhone sales?

There's a sea change coming this fall. AT&T and Verizon are be on notice.]]>Feb 5th 2008 1:56PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/Feb 5th 2008 2:16PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/Feb 5th 2008 2:12PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/
I spent 12 years in the Marines, and worked with a bunch of MI and CIA people types.

Besides - the government doesn't care about you and your online beastiality porn fetish. There are over 300,000,000 in this country - unless you have some nuclear warheads in your basement, I doubt they know you even exist.]]>Feb 5th 2008 2:24PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/05/open-access-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-as/
Thank you for explaining that! Commie conspiracy crap pisses me off!

/salute]]>Feb 6th 2008 11:21AM