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FCC proposes boosted in-flight WiFi speed with 14GHz spectrum by 2020
The FCC released a report yesterday detailing plans to free up 500 megahertz of spectrum, in an effort to supercharge our nation's ground-to-air mobile broadband infrastructure. The proposed spectrum would fall within the 14.0-14.5 GHz band, which is currently utilized for satellite uplinks. The FCC references an earlier Qualcomm proposal, which suggests data speeds of 300 gigabits per second with refreshed equipment operating over the new spectrum. With that bandwidth, all of the 15,000 WiFi-equipped aircraft that are estimated to be operating by 2021 would be able to offer significantly improved performance for passengers, and at a much lower cost. Based on verbiage in the report, the FCC's proposed date of 2020 sounds ambitious -- even with the agency completing "a great deal of ongoing work," it could be a decade before we can take advantage of gigabit connections from 37,000 feet in the air. Gogo's next-gen system and ViaSat's promised satellite rollout should be hitting planes before 2013 is through, however, delivering notable improvements of their own.
Mobile Miscellany: week of April 22nd, 2013
If you didn't get enough mobile news during the week, not to worry, because we've opened the firehose for the truly hardcore. This week, a familiar smartphone leaked that's said to join the prepaid ranks at Verizon Wireless, AT&T swung back against the DOJ, and Rogers issued its quarterly earnings. These stories and more await after the break. So buy the ticket and take the ride as we explore all that's happening in the mobile world for this week of April 22nd, 2013.
Verizon in talks to lease Clearwire spectrum for $1.5 billion
Verizon could be looking to bolster its wireless network with Clearwire spectrum, according to the Wall Street Journal. The potential deal, of which little is known at the moment, would see the nation's number one wireless operator forking over $1.5 billion to lease Clearwire's spectrum. It's an odd move for Verizon given its past aggressive stance on spectrum acquisition, but due to legal entanglements involving Clearwire and 50-percent owner Sprint, it's likely the only available option. At present, Sprint is seeking to buy out the remaining stake in Clearwire, bringing that company and its valuable spectrum -- formerly used for WiMAX -- completely in-house. But complicating matters is a rival bid from Dish, which is offering $25.5 billion to buy Sprint (a move prompted by its failed Clearwire bid) and build out a wireless network of its own with holdings it acquired from previous FCC spectrum auctions. With spectrum so finite a resource, the only recourse carriers have is to lease, acquire or win auctioned spectrum (should the FCC seek to free more up). Rest assured, these operator wars will only get messier and more frequent with time as the US rolls over into an all LTE future.
DOJ identifies lower frequency spectrum as key to wireless competition
The Department of Justice has provided the FCC with new recommendations for governing spectrum auctions, and with a heavy emphasis on leveling the playing field, the findings are likely to draw the ire of AT&T and Verizon. In its briefing, the DOJ made its case that the nation's two largest carriers currently hold market power, which is due to the heavy concentration of lower frequency spectrum (below 1,000MHz) allocated to the two incumbents. According to DOJ officials, "This results in the two smaller nationwide carriers having a somewhat diminished ability to compete, particularly in rural areas, where the cost to build out coverage is higher with high-frequency spectrum." Although the DOJ never came right out and said it, one can easily surmise that it's guiding the FCC to establish rules that favor smaller carriers -- namely Sprint and T-Mobile -- in future low-frequency spectrum auctions. In the DOJ's opinion, an incumbent carrier would need to demonstrate both compelling evidence of capacity constraints and an efficient use of its current licenses in order to gain additional lower frequency spectrum. Otherwise, the opportunity exists for AT&T and Verizon to snap up licenses simply in attempt to harm competitors. Given that the FCC and DOJ share the responsibility of ensuring competition in the marketplace, it seems unlikely that this latest brief will fall on deaf ears.
EE to double 4G spectrum allocation, boost speeds in first ten cities by summer (Update: LTE-A testing starts this year)
While EE scrambles to spread its LTE network far and wide before the other UK carriers get into the 4G business, it also wants to flex some spectrum muscle. The network's announced it's planning to double the LTE allocation on its 1800MHz band (from 2 x 10MHz to 2 x 20MHz), which it claims will increase download speeds to an average of 20 Mbps, topping out at 80 Mbps. Ten of the 11 original 4G launch cities will be seeing this bandwidth boost first: London, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester and Sheffield. EE doesn't want you to think it's done expanding, though, and says it'll continue to make use of its MHz and GHz by rolling out boring, normal LTE in new areas whilst doubling up in others. The first ten cities are due to receive "double-speed" 4G by summer, which we assume means around the time summer is supposed to happen. Update: EE's Howard Jones has added on Twitter that the network will start trialing carrier aggregation, LTE-A (that's even better 4G) later in 2013. We've asked for more details and will fill you in when we hear more. EE will be trialling carrier aggregation, LTE-A, for 4G within 2013. We'll be the first anywhere in the world to do so. #onestepahead - Howard Jones (@howard_jones) April 9, 2013 [Image credit: Lazygamer, Flickr]
Mobile Miscellany: week of March 18th, 2013
If you didn't get enough mobile news during the week, not to worry, because we've opened the firehose for the truly hardcore. This week, a potential listing of T-Mobile's LTE launch markets was leaked, the FCC Chairman gave notice of upcoming spectrum auctions and Sprint issued a teaser for all you Windows Phone fans. So buy the ticket and take the ride as we explore all that's happening in the mobile world for this week of March 18th, 2013.
Canadian government sets November 19th as date for 700MHz auction
Well, it's not the first half of 2013 as originally promised, but the Canadian government has now set a specific date for the country's first 700MHz spectrum auction: November 19th of this year. Alongside that bit of news, Industry Minister Christian Paradis also detailed a set of rules that he says will help provide consumers with "more choices and more access at better prices." That includes what the government describes as extended and expanded requirements for carriers to allow roaming on their networks, as well as a more general goal to have at least four competitors in each region of the country. Paradis also says the government is tightening its rules to increase cellphone tower sharing, a move aimed to both increase wireless coverage and "reduce cell tower proliferation." You can find his full statement after the break.
Refresh Roundup: week of February 18th, 2013
Your smartphone and / or tablet is just begging for an update. From time to time, these mobile devices are blessed with maintenance refreshes, bug fixes, custom ROMs and anything in between, and so many of them are floating around that it's easy for a sizable chunk to get lost in the mix. To make sure they don't escape without notice, we've gathered every possible update, hack, and other miscellaneous tomfoolery we could find during the last week and crammed them into one convenient roundup. If you find something available for your device, please give us a shout at tips at engadget dawt com and let us know. Enjoy!
Mobile Miscellany: week of February 18th, 2013
If you didn't get enough mobile news during the week, not to worry, because we've opened the firehose for the truly hardcore. This week brought confirmation of Pantech's next phone for Verizon, legal battles over the airwaves in India and a new smartphone to Virgin Mobile. These stories and more await after the break. So buy the ticket and take the ride as we explore the "best of the rest" for this week of February 18th, 2013.
Sprint CEO eyes more spectrum deals after buying Clearwire
Sprint CEO Dan Hesse isn't so narrowly focused as to think that the proposed Clearwire acqusition represents the end of the road for spectrum. Far from it: he tells Bloomberg Businessweek that the company is investigating future airwave deals involving companies and government auctions. The Clearwire deal mostly bought time, according to Hesse. Naturally, these ambitions are partly contingent on both SoftBank's purchase of Sprint and the absence of any Dish-sized hurdles to the Clearwire pact. As long as the path stays clear, though, we wouldn't assume that Hesse's shopping spree is over.
FCC proposal hopes to grow WiFi spectrum by 35 percent, reduce hotspot congestion
Sick of overloaded public WiFi? So is the FCC. Back at CES FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said we were heading for a WiFi "traffic jam," and promised to work with Government agencies to score public networks a little extra spectrum. In an effort to make good on the pledge, the FCC has now proposed a 195 megahertz expansion of the 5GHz band, giving unlicensed wireless devices (that would be your tablets, laptops, phones etc) a little bandwidth to share. The move would give devices a wider channel, which should translate to faster connection speeds. It isn't all just for the sake of your local coffee shop's network congestion, however -- the proposal also fulfills requirements laid out by the Middle Class Tax Relief and Jobs Creation Act of 2012, which called for expanding spectrum for unlicensed use. Sounds like a winning move to us. Check out the FCC's official press announcement after the break.
Ofcom announces 4G spectrum winners in the UK, snags less cash than expected
UK regulator Ofcom has revealed the winners of its 4G spectrum auction after more than 50 rounds of bidding: EE, Hutchison 3G (Three), BT subsidiary Niche Spectrum Ventures, Telefonica (O2) and Vodafone. It wasn't all good news however, as the agency revealed the auction only roped in £2.4 billion pounds, less than the £3.5 billion it had anticipated. Left on the outside looking in? MLL Telecom and HKT Company. Interestingly enough it was Vodafone -- headed by CEO Vittorio Colao who famously suggested only "technofreaks" were into 4G speed -- that spent the most. The idea is to spread high speed wireless across "almost the whole" UK population by 2017 at the latest, and the auction's intent was to create more competition in the space. Telefonica UK specifically is required to provide indoor reception to at least 98 percent of the population by then, as a condition of its bid. As seen above, the available 250MHz of spectrum was auctioned off in two separate bands, 800MHz (ideal for expanded coverage and freed up by the digital TV transition) and 2.6GHz more suited to high speed data connections. So what's next? You guessed it -- another round of bidding, to determine where in each band the winners spectrum lies, before services roll out in spring or summer of this year. Hit the source link to check out the full results for yourself and prepare for the 5G battle, expected to commence sometime after 2018.
Verizon wraps up 700MHz spectrum sales to three rural telecom firms
While Verizon wasn't quick to start selling 700MHz blocks to live up to the terms of its AWS purchase, it's clearly willing to up the tempo. The carrier says it just finished deals this week to sell lower B-block 700MHz airwaves in Texas to already announced customer Nortex Communications as well as Oklahoma's Panhandle Telecommunication Systems. We're also learning that Verizon quietly signed off on a deal in mid-January that transfers A-block spectrum in Houston to Colorado Valley Communications. The agreements might not provide the interoperability with Verizon's C-block that some crave, but they could still help level the playing field for smaller telecom outlets.
UK investigating passive radar system to detect aircraft location, free up 5G spectrum
Ready for a new radar system? The UK could be, if a new study is deemed a success. Thales, a French aerospace company which manufactures traditional radar systems, has received funding from the UK's Technology Strategy Board to study the feasibility of using TV signals to locate planes and choppers through a technology called "passive radar." According to the BBC, the system would monitor the timing of TV signals reflected from aircraft, which would enable equipment to display an exact location, while measuring the Doppler effect would provide speed and direction information. Though it's not based on GPS, the new system would reportedly be more accurate and efficient than what's in use today, while also serving to free up spectrum that could be used for an upcoming 5G network. Unconvinced frequent fliers need not worry, however -- the country's existing radar infrastructure would remain intact throughout the test period, and air traffic control officials won't be switching to the new system unless it's sanctioned, which, considering the significance of such a move, could take some time.
Mobile Miscellany: week of January 28th, 2013
If you didn't get enough mobile news during the week, not to worry, because we've opened the firehose for the truly hardcore. This week brought a resolution to HTC's kerfuffle with the custom ROM community, along with a handful of special edition Samsung smartphones and new efforts toward spectrum sharing with the US government. So buy the ticket and take the ride as we explore the "best of the rest" for this week of January 28th, 2013.
'First' prototype hardware built for broadband over IEEE's white space standard
If you hadn't realized already, spectrum is quite the hot commodity, and any unused slice is a potential data highway just begging to be cruised. One mostly vacant stretch is the eerie white space -- megahertz left empty when TV broadcasts move from analog to digital frequencies. The IEEE published its 802.22 standard for white space broadband 18 months ago, and now a group comprising the NICT, ISB Corp and Hitachi Kokusai Electric (not to be confused with the other Hitachi) have built the "first" prototype hardware to make use of it. White space spectrum in the 470 to 710MHz range is expected to provide wireless internet to "underserved areas" and act as an emergency backup for downed systems, when infrastructure is finally up and running. Given we're only at the prototype stage following the inception of the 802.22 standard in 2011, out-of-towners will probably be waiting a while longer before having the option to stream entertainment over those dead TV airwaves. Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony.
Rogers to buy Mountain Cable, license wireless spectrum from Shaw for $710 million
Reuters is chiming in this evening with word that Canadian telco Rogers is ready to spend $710 million ($700 million in Canuck cash) to buy Mountain Cablevision Limited and license wireless spectrum from cable giant Shaw Communications. If Rogers sees fit, it can even buy up spectrum licenses from Shaw in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Northern Ontario and Saskatchewan thanks to the deal. Cable channel TVtropolis, which is jointly owned by Shaw and Rogers, will see the remainder of its Rogers-owned stake bought up by Shaw for roughly 59 million Canadian dollars. There's no word on when the deals will be finalized, but you can expect to hear Rogers and Shaw give themselves hearty pats on the back when they get rubber-stamped. Update: Eagle-eyed commenters have pointed out that it's Shaw which will buy the remaining steak in TVtropolis it doesn't own, not Rogers. We've updated the post accordingly.
FCC working to expand WiFi spectrum, wants to avoid wireless 'traffic jam'
Ever suffer through the painfully slow bottleneck of public WiFi? Sure you have -- Airports, coffee shops, even your neighbor's unprotected home network are limited by the current WiFi spectrum. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski says it's a problem, and wants to clean up the mess. Speaking with Gary Shaprio at CES, Genachowski revealed that he's been working with the DoD and other Government agencies open up more bandwidth for WiFi. Areas like New York City have an abundance of spectrum set aside for TV licenses, he says, airwaves that could serve the public better for WiFi or cellular networks. "The rest of the world is watching us," he told Shapiro. "We have to get it right... ...we need to have a nationwide, unlicensed, continuous, same-frequency platform for innovation." To do that, the FCC will need to wrench spectrum from the hands of broadcasters, and redistribute it. "We can reorganize it and ensure everybody gets a good share." It's an uphill battle, but one the chairman recognizes as important. "We predict a WiFi traffic jam, and we need to fix it... ...WiFi is such an integral part of our broadband ecosystem, and we need to make sure that we pay it sufficient attention." Check out the rest of Shaprio and Genachowski's dialog in our ongoing liveblog.
FCC tasks Dish with building 70 percent of its AWS-4 LTE network in 7 years
The fellas at the FCC may have given Dish Network the green light to pilfer the AWS-4 spectrum for its upcoming LTE plans, but it didn't do so without leaving a few lingering strings. Dish is expected to build out the proposed network at a rate of ten percent per year, and faces serious consequences if it misses the proposed goals. If the company fails to make a 40 percent rollout in four years, for instance, Dish will be expected to polish off the remaining 30 percent in just two years instead of three. The company has seven trips around the sun to claim the entirety of its proposed market, too -- the FCC says Dish's license to uncovered areas will automatically expire if it doesn't have 70 percent of the network ready within the alloted timeframe. Competing networks are concerned that Dish may intentionally fall short of this goal, covering the most profitable markets at the expense of losing coverage in less lucrative, rural areas. The feds put out some guidelines on power limitations too, and the fate of the contested H band is still up in the air. Eager to sift though the federal declarations? Skip on over to the source links below and jump in -- it's only a cumulative 216 pages of legalese.
AT&T scores WCS spectrum victory, covers 608 markets and 82 percent of Americans
The wireless landscape shifted a bit today, as the FCC has made good on its promise to allow AT&T's deployment of LTE service over the WCS band. In all, the regulatory agency approved Ma Bell's acquisition of licenses to the underutilized 2.3GHz spectrum from Comcast, Horizon, NextWave and San Diego Gas and Electric, along with additional AWS spectrum from NextWave. The licenses cover 82 percent of the population across 608 markets within the continental US. If you're an AT&T subscriber, however, don't expect to benefit from the deal overnight. By the carrier's own admission, it'll take at least three years to build up the proper infrastructure and introduce devices that support WCS, which means you're likely to go through a new iPhone or two between now and then. In the meantime, feel free to soak in the nitty gritty details at the source. [Cell tower photo credit: Ashish Sharma / Flickr]
