The Dirty Business of Assembling WiMAX Spectrum

go_jesse writes in to make us aware of a MarketWatch article reporting on the battles that WiMAX partners Sprint and Clearwire are fighting — sometimes with one another — to put together enough spectrum to fill in their planned WiMAX coverage map. The problem is that decades ago the FCC passed out licenses in what would become the WiMAX band to schools and non-profits nationwide. Once Sprint began knocking on their doors asking to license their spectrum — once they began seeing dollar signs in a forgotten resource — dozens, then hundreds of these organizations applied to the FCC to renew long-dormant licenses. The FCC has granted the first of these requests and Sprint has asked it to reconsider. Confusingly, Sprint's partner Clearwire has sided with the schools and non-profits. The article sheds light in one messy corner of the battle to provide a "third pipe" into US consumers' homes.

Re:We'll pay in the end

[nine-times]

Yeah, but we're going to get screwed by the telecoms either way. May as well have them paying the schools in the meantime.

of pipes and tubes

[User 956]

WiMAX partners Sprint and Clearwire are fighting to put together enough spectrum to fill in their planned WiMAX coverage map.

Given that they can't even fill in their cell service coverage map, I can't imagine this is going well at all.

Re:HypeMAX

[nine-times]

They ignore that all other efforts to build a massive wireless data infrastructure have failed to find sufficient customers even when they make it easy and fairly cheap.

Huh? WiMAX may be over-hyped, but when has someone ever created an effective, ubiquitous, highspeed wireless data infrastructure and then offered it cheaply? I don't know what "MetroCom" you're referring to, but I'm sure that no one has ever offered a good wireless data network anywhere I've lived. Verizon's data services are kind of passable, assuming you don't mind being stuck with Verizon's service and a proprietary wireless receiver, but they're not that great. And they have customers.

just open it up!

[m2943]

WiFi has shown that the world doesn't end when there's a region of spectrum that anybody can use; modern electronics is smart enough to co-exist, and when there is interferences (Bluetooth vs. WiFi), manufacturers get together and work it out.

So, just open up a bunch of bands under similar terms to WiFi. If Sprint wants to deploy WiMax there, great. If other people want to use it for baby monitors, that's great too.

What companies are really after is for the government to hand them a monopoly and to make it difficult for their competitors to enter the market, and that we shouldn't happen.

So, FCC, take away the bands from the spectrum-hoarding institutions, but don't give them to other companies, just open them up.

Re:Phased Arrays

[NeuralAbyss]

The Shannon limit still applies. It's not a solution to all the problems of RF signalling..

Re:just open it up!

[amper]

Despite my agreement with the basic libertarian tenets of this post, I find it utterly appalling that on a site like Slashdot that this post could be modded up, "Insightful". This post displays such a fundamental lack of knowledge about radio technology, the purpose of the FCC, and the functions of government and private enterprise, that I wonder if the post isn't just a troll, in the end.

IEEE 802.11b and similar technologies aren't licensed services. They operate under Class B rules, which severely limit the usefulness of these devices to relatively short distances. Class B rules are in no way suitable for wide-reaching wireless services. Before anyone starts talking about Pringles can antennae, you should know that such modifications are, technically, not FCC-compliant.

Radio specturm is a resource which is in very limited, fixed supply. Without regulation, there would be utter chaos. Granted, the regulation could be more efficient, but there are smarter, more knowledgable people in this world than the parent poster who understand the function of licensed services.