"What happens when every wireless user has an iPhone, a Palm Pre, or a BlackBerry Tour?" Speaking at CTIA Wireless IT & Entertainment in San Diego today, FCC head Julius Genachowski has said that he wants to "close the spectrum gap" -- the difference between the spectrum it's making available for wireless data versus enormous usage projections (400 petabytes a month by 2013, he says) that'll be brought about by smarter, easier-to-use devices and ubiquitous high-speed data through a handful of initiatives including the promotion of the smart use of existing spectrum through the use of femotcells, WiFi, and smart antennas, and -- more importantly -- reallocation of existing spectrum. Genachowski says there are "no easy pickings" for reallocation, but the Commission is aggressively pursuing additional airspace that can help keep 4G rollouts on track. He's gone on to say that they'll be adopting the widely-discussed "shot clock" policy for placement of new towers, giving locales a limited window to protest placement of cell sites that'll help spread 4G services over wider footprints. The guy seems genuinely concerned about keeping 4G rollouts rolling, so let's see just how far the guys in Washington are willing to go to do that.
posted Oct 7th 2009 1:00PM
"What happens when every wireless user has an iPhone, a Palm Pre, or a BlackBerry Tour?"
Then EVERY wireless user will have something to complain about.
Even if there was a phone with ALL of the following: -
1. HTC Leo hardware
2. iPhone's ease of use
3. iPhone's App store (re. number of apps)
4. Android's Openness (phone and the app store)
5. WebOS's awesome card view and notification system
6. A battery that would last a week between charges with heavy use
7. Full bars of signal that covers the entire earth's surface and 10 basement floors
8. Cell data connection faster and with lesser lag than your home internet connection
People will STILL find one or the other thing to complain about. That's basic human nature my friend.
Or, you can conquer human nature, as we Stoics do, and manage your expectations.
"Yeah the Pre's slider is a little wobbly, but it makes my life easier overall, so why bitch and moan about things I can't change?"
"Yeah, the iPhone's network is shitty, and its not for power business users, but I have a hell of a lot of fun using it."
"Yeah, the Blackberry..."
Well, maybe you can complain about the Blackberry.
@Sisyphus: " I have a hell of a lot of fun using it." Uh Oh, better be careful! If you have that much fun using it you might become attached to it and make yourself upset if you one day lose it or it breaks!
You're right Mark, I am very attached to my great gaming devices.
What's interesting is how significant this problem will be in different geographical regions.
How about working with Europeans to make sure the frequencies are the same instead of America always having a different operating spectrum than the rest of the world.
It's like the jump to the metric system.
It ain't happening because it would make too much sense.
It's a legacy of protectionism and regionalism. 900MHz is a perfect example -- both North America and Europe put 850-950MHz to similar purposes, but the detailed bands are all rearranged. And once you put cellphones someplace it can be damn hard to move them.
What about us android users?!
Oops?
Sorry that most people write Android. But you guys deserve this from throwing "will it run Android" on EVERY single Engadget post.
wow....he could be one of the few competent people in Washington
Unless he supports Open Spectrum, I don't think he's competent about RF policy.
Except the FCC is the biggest CAUSE of the spectrum crisis.
"Spectrum Crisis" sucked for PC.
"Spectrum Crisis 2: The Search for more Spectrum" was the good one.
(Not to be confused with "Speculum Crisis" which was just...unfortunate.)
lmao!
go team venture!
"giving locales a limited window to protest placement of cell sites that'll help spread 4G services over wider footprints"
Ever wonder why some cities suck more than others for coverage or certain areas of a city doesn't have good coverage? Don't blame the carriers. Blame residents that make it next to impossible to erect new towers (even on buildings).
Essentially the FFC will raise the metaphorical middle finger to these people and it'll be easier for carriers to roll out more towers.
I would think that it is easier to place cells in cities because what is one more blight on an already ugly area?
I see what youre saying...... Personally Id add wind solar and thermal as well as a cell tower on my roof. My neighborhood association said no to almost all of those. Because it ruins the aesthetic of an old neighborhood. Its about time we balance out.....
They can suck my aesthetic.........
Here in Houston, TX, we have a 100-year neighborhood that become a popular place to live for people that are moving up the payscale and want to be close to downtown for a short commute. A few years ago, ATT (Cingular then) wanted to place a tower in the area because the amount of users have grown the signal was extremely weak (just driving through you can see your bars drop). The neighborhood is full of activists and other people who love to protest. They fought the tower. ATT tried coming up with all kinds of way to hide the tower in the neighborhood. They finally came to an agreement of a bell tower looking structure that hid the cell tower.
P.S. If you live in an area lacking coverage, leasing out a portion of the property for a tower is a great source of side income. Many rural areas just outside of major master planned communities here in Houston are getting great cell coverage. The landowners lease the area needed for a tower and provides a good access for crews that need to work on them. The neighborhoods don't allow the homeowners to do this.
Start repurposing old 2G/GSM frequencies for 3G/4G networks. As a majority start having 3G phones, it makes sense to cut down the capacity on the older, less efficient technologies. Look at what Europe is doing with UMTS900.
Makes sense. I think this can only happen when no more 2G phones are sold anymore.
Does this post mean that Engadget is at CTIA? Nobody seems to posting from there.
So, Engadget is at CTIA today?
well, technically there are an infinite number of frequencies to use, you just need better equipment to distinguish between them (though interference may limit that a tad)
Interference is a myth. The problem is omnidirectional antennas can't properly distinguish between sources, without the help of other antennas like in a MIMO array configuration. Saying any form of radio "interferes" is like saying a bright red sign on a billboard "interferes" with a bright red curtain in a nearby building. We know they don't, because our eyes can distinguish between the two sources of red color spatially. Radio frequencies are just colors outside of human-visible spectrum.
The problem is the sensing equipment, and new technologies would get rid of that problem if the FCC got out of the way and stopped allowing color monopolies.
am i the only person who visits engadget and has no idea what the big deal with all this spectrum stuff is? can you eat it? if so ill have it in strawberry flavour
What they REALLY need to do is open up another world-wide unlicensed band (like 2.4GHz) at a useful frequency. The number of local uses of 2.4GHz has crowded the band beyond belief. The 5Ghz band isn;t too useful as 5GHz won't penetrate walls very well. We need more international bands.
Whitespaces used by cognitive radios are a way to utilize unused slices of spectrum in the same way "unlicensed" bands are used now. The problem is that if the FCC keeps giving away or selling out RF-color monopolies to the telco monopolists, "4G" or otherwise, there wont be any unused spectrum left for the rest of us.
3g isn't even that great yet how the shit do they expect to pull off 4g roll outs already?
Another crisis?
Healthcare crisis, energy crisis, climate crisis, jobs crisis, global economic crisis, real-estate crisis, banking crisis, literacy crisis... And now a spectrum crisis?!?
Isn't this the kind of "frightening rhetoric" that makes Nancy Pelosi cry?
I love how two of the "solutions" to wireless broadband are increased use of femtocells and WiFi...
Uh, I'm sure the local carriers of those pipes are going to love a massive additional load on their networks if the FCC adopts those two options as mainstream solutions. Femtocells are great for those individuals who have issues with reception at home....not so great as a second coming for offloading millions of people onto landlines.
I disagree. There is only so much spectrum that can be used to blanket an area. When it get filled up, your done. But a internet provider or homeowner can always add another wire, or a fiber, or a 2nd fiber to add capacity to a wired location. It may be expensive to add capacity this way, but at least it's not physically impossible. So femtocells CAN be a real solution.
It's like Windows Mobile doesn't exist, yet there are over 20 million of them in use on the market. Is it really just iphone, blackberry, and palm?
yes my friend. Until wm 7 comes out with some of that magic "we're not as bad as we used to be but not as good as anybody else" dust to sprinkle on poor business ppl
The word is femtocells not femotcells I had to look up in Wikipedia; never heard of it before.
I have a novel Idea, How about abandoning old cellular technologies, and lets become a 4G only country. The biggest problem we have in our cellular system is hanging on to old tech that eats up a lot of valuable frequency space. Smart antennas would be another good approach that could drastically increase the amount of Spectrum by allowing us to more effectively reuse the spectrum we have. Femento cells and pico cells are really only good for really heavily congested areas but that might be good for places like Manhattan. People advocate an open spectrum policy don't understand the tech well enough. It is great when you are using it for a local connection and there is minimal unknown interference, but would be a disaster over a wide area with a ton of unknown broadcasters. There needs to be some kind of "traffic cop" to assign frequencies and avoid interference. The tech just isn't available yet.
Just force cable companies to provide free local TV services and take the rest of VHF and UHF back. It's not like we needed 700Mhz for DTV, since VHF has been perfect ... oh wait.
Screw the "Spectrum Crisis," I wanna know what these "femotcells" are :)
Ya, so I didn't really understand all that jazz. Just someone do their job to make it work, and you'll have money that you can put into your bank account. We're happy, you're happy, life moves on.
This guy is an absolute TOOL. He wants the goverment to have total access to all your personal data and the ability to shut down the net whenever they feel like it. Trust NOTHING Genachowski says. Here's an idea for addressing the spectrum issue - how about actually providing cable and DSL to the 25-30% of continential America that has no broadband. Instead of finding ways for cell carriers to charge more people $120/month for circa-1998 bandwidth (with a 5g limit!), RUN SOME DAMN COPPER. Or better yet, fiber.
Much of what evilsushi says is true, but the real problem is that most people who are getting data services these days do so because their either Youtube/Twitter addicts, or because they can't get terrestrial broadband. Its pretty sad when the best I can do is MEdianet. Meanwhile, half of Maylasia has fiber to their mud huts.