Thought you had no alternatives for broadband?
One of the most common claims made by proponents of government regulation of the Internet (AKA “network neutrality”) is that it is necessary because broadband is a duopoly. At best, these people claim, most US residents have a choice between the telephone company and the cable company; that’s it. Enter wireless consultant Brian Webster, who has embarked upon a project to compile a map showing the coverage of terrestrial, fixed wireless Internet providers (WISPs) throughout the United States. The results so far can be found at http://www.wirelessmapping.com/WISP%20National%20Map.png, and they’re quite impressive: more than 750,000 square miles covered, including every “NFL city” and quite a few places that have neither cable nor DSL. And the map currently includes the coverage areas of only about 1/3 of all WISPs. Which begs the questions: Why are WISPs ignored in the current stimulus legislation (which is written as if cell phone companies were the only providers of wireless broadband)? And why hasn’t Congress or the FCC allocated spectrum for such service? (Most WISPs operate on the Part 15 unlicensed bands, where interference from even the most mundane consumer devices is a constant challenge and limits the range of service.)
Perhaps Congress, as part of the economic stimulus, should consider renaming the AWS-3 band — 25 MHz of spectrum which would be excellent for this purpose — the “Broadband Stimulus Band” and instructing the FCC to license it, non-exclusively, to those wireless broadband providers who have no exclusively licensed spectrum to call their own. To ensure that the spectrum can be shared among multiple providers in a given area, the rules could divide the band into 5 MHz channels, and require that the 802.11y spectrum sharing protocol be used to ensure that even fierce competitors won’t intentionally step on one another. This wouldn’t require a penny from the public treasury, but might accomplish more than the $9 billion stimulus now pending in Congress. In fact, it might just turn the entire map yellow….
- February 4th
Doesn’t the FCC already have the kind of light license-lite scheme you’re asking for in the 3.65 GHz band?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11y
Wireless internet has so many advantages over terrestrial services. The most important being that we are increasingly mobile consumers of the internet. Having internet in the home is of little value when you are not at the premises. Additionally wireless networks can be built out much faster than terrestrial networks because of the wireless nature. After a disaster such as a hurricane or ice storm a wireless ISP can restore service to customers much faster again because of the wireless nature of their service.
As a WISP owner / operator, The main purpose of this coverage map is to let Washington D. C. know that we do exist, and in large numbers. They haven’t ever had this type of information in the past. I congradulate Brian Webster for his dedication to getting this out to the public. It has been a long time coming.
The frequencies that are coming available, some require a large cash outlay. A lot of companies cannot afford the cost of buying up spectrum to use for broadband deployments. We have to use the current unlicensed frequencies that are available. As far as the 3.65 GHZ band, I cannot use it due to the FCC restrictions regarding being too close to either radar or earth stations. I’m too close to these making the band useless to me.
DSLbyAir, LLC is a small company, but collectively, we are a very large industry that has use our own financial resources, spent countly hours on getting our networks running. A lot of us did it with no compensation.
It is time that Washington wakes up and sees that the frequencies that were unlicensed are being used to the fullest extent. All it takes on Washington’s side is to remove the barriers that they have in place, and get out of the way. The free market solution will take over.
George:
Good question. Yes, this scheme would be somewhat like, but superior to, what has been done in the 3.65-3.70 GHz band. The 3.65 GHz band is “lightly licensed,” but has had a number of problems:
1. The FCC’s original rules for the band required that all equipment use “contention-based protocols” to allow sharing of the spectrum. However, because Chairman Michael Powell resigned shortly thereafter and was replaced by Kevin Martin (who did not share Powell’s interest in the concept of nonexclusively licensed spectrum for broadband), the FCC never followed up. In particular, it never specified what “contention-based” spectrum sharing protocols would be acceptable, and has never approved any equipment as having properly implemented them.
2. Immediately after the FCC released its Report and Order regarding the 3.65 GHz band, the “WiMAX Posse” — well funded lobbyists for WiMAX equipment makers and licensed spectrum owners — stepped into the picture and filed a Petition for Reconsideration. They pressured the FCC to remove the requirement for a protocol that allowed spectrum sharing (which at the time ruled out the use of WiMAX), and/or to revoke the order altogether and license the spectrum exclusively. The Martin FCC, again not being terribly enthusiastic about the whole idea and demonstrating that it was overly receptive to bad ideas from lobbyists, “split the baby.” It divided the band, which would have been much more useful as one contiguous block of spectrum, into two halves. It allowed the lower half of the band to be used without any spectrum etiquette whatsoever, so that WiMAX equipment could be used there. This has since proven to be a very bad idea. In areas where WiMAX has been deployed on this band by multiple providers, there has been nasty interference, because WiMAX equipment (unlike Wi-Fi, which uses CSMA) doesn’t even try to avoid interfering with other users of the band. Essentially, half of the band has been turned into a jungle. Worse still, to this day the FCC still has not approved any equipment to operate on the half of the band which does require “contention-based protocols.” So, the band is half jungle and half unused. However, it has proven very useful for point-to-point links, and also does work in areas where there happens to be only one provider doing point-to-multipoint wireless broadband. This is a good proof of concept and demonstrates what could be done with better rules.
3. Another problem with the 3.65-3.70 GHz band is that it is not available for use in large areas of the country. There are incumbent licensees on the band — operators of satellite uplinks and downlinks — and the rules state that one can’t operate terrestrial links within a 50 mile radius of their ground stations. (There’s a great interactive map of these zones at http://zing.naviciti.com/ if you’d like to see where they are.) Your Silicon Valley home happens to be in one, due to the presence of Moffett Field. I am also in one, due to the satellite facility maintained by Echostar/Dish Network in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Because such large portions of the population have been excluded from service on this band, equipment manufacturers have had far less incentive to make radios that work on this spectrum than they otherwise would. And the equipment that does exist is expensive, because economies of scale are smaller than they would be if there were no exclusion zones.
4. Finally, the FCC didn’t limit the use of the 3.65 GHz band to broadband providers who did not own spectrum. Even now, we see some providers which do own exclusively licensed spectrum “doubling up” and using the 3.65 GHz band as well, creating a barrier to competition.
It’s legally possible, though it might ruffle some feathers, to reclaim the lower half of the 3.65 GHz band from its “jungle” status. (Any WiMAX gear should be upgradable to use 802.11y, so this is feasible — but the FCC would need the political will to do it. Also, the deadline for upgrades would probably have to be a couple of years away to avoid depriving anyone of service, and we want an immediate economic stimulus.) The upper half is still in limbo, and both halves are encumbered by the exclusion zones. The AWS-3 band, on the other hand, would be usable throughout the US and could be subjected to spectrum etiquettes from the get-go.
What’s more, the licenses could be reserved for point-to-multipoint wireless broadband (avoiding the risk of intense interference if a point-to-point link was aimed too closely at a receiver) and for wireless broadband providers which do not themselves own spectrum and are not controlled by or affliated with entities that do. The release of the AWS-3 spectrum under these terms would promote competition, support spectrum sharing, and encourage deployment of broadband to unserved areas.
[...] o uso de VoIP e jogos interativos? Um dos segredos mais bem mantidos da America, pelo que parece, é a ampla cobertura de WISPs — terrestre (nem satélite nem celular) provedores de internet banda larga wireless. O artigo [...]
Nothing in your post begs the question. Learn to use the language correctly.
The map linked in this article makes it look like my area (Orange County, CA) has wireless coverage. However, neither WirelessMapping.com nor WISPA.org made it very easy for me to find a provider.
The one provider I found charged $160/mo, and I’m paying Time Warner/Earthlink $42/mo right now.
If I need to be mobile, it’s usually pretty easy to find free (or free for the cost of a coffee) WiFi at a local shop.
Any suggestions?
Well it’s nice to have a coverage map, but if there’s no way to find what ISP is where, it’s mildly useless.
Cool…. That trackback above is in Portuguese! Must be Brazilian. Perhaps we need to expand the map to cover Central and South America.
In any event, answers to some of the comments above.
@Pedant: From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question: “In American English, ‘begging the question’ is generally used to mean that a statement invites another obvious question; this usage is considered incorrect in British English.”
@Mike: The coverage map intentionally doesn’t show the coverage areas of individual WISPs, to guard against anticompetitive practices by telephone and cable companies. But the WISPs will tell you, individually, whether they can serve you. As for directories: try http://www.wispdirectory.com and http://www.part-15.org/maps/WISPSearch.asp.
@Nick: See the two directories in the paragraph just above. Also see Brian’s Google overlay map at http://www.wirelessmapping.com/Google%20Maps3.htm. (I did not feature this one in the article because the overlay is pretty big. Each use of the map causes a 2.4 MB download from Brian’s Web server.)
The misuse of “begs the question” has become so commonplace in America that nobody even remembers the correct usage, which is making an argument in which the conclusion is presumed by the premise. “Raises the question” is the more appropriate construction, of course. Wikipedia simply documents our creeping illiteracy. But that’s fairly wide of Brett’s point, in any case.
This map is misleading. it shows very good coverage in many areas, but then if you drill down (with the links provided in the comments threads), you find that the coverage is nowhere near as complete as this map indicates.
much of this is due to the limited resolution of the map, but something like this needs to be zoomable to account for this.
@David: Even the best wireless coverage map is only approximate. If you see yellow near you (even if it’s not right over you), call the nearest WISP for a site survey. They may be able to reach you even if you’re not inside the area shown.
I just checked the WISPs listed in my area from both those directories. One has no information whatsoever on their exceptionally lame website, another says they’re hosting and colocation and has nothing whatsoever about WISP, a third has their domain for sale and is nothing but a parked page. Which means I can get DSL from the phone company or cable service from the cable company. And I’m one of the lucky ones with a choice, awful as it is.
I’m sorry to hear that. If you send me more information, I’ll try to see if I can find one that’s still in operation in your area. WISPs often merge or relocate; ours is a young industry.
Of course, if you are frustrated by not having one in your area, and your neighbors are as well, you can easily start one.
Can easily start one you say? I’m Canadian myself, but it’s the same general issues up here. $200/mo for a high latency sattelite connection unless you’re somewhere on the Cable or DSL/Fibre grid. Which then ranges from $20/mo for 256/256 upto $90+ for 16Mb.
Up here Cable is invariably 30 to 80% more expensive for equivalent bandwidth/speed over the DSL services, and with Bell Canada now offering Fiber at 16Mb that’s the best we’ve got. (If you don’t go into the limited markets supporting VHDSL+)
Anyway, my brother and I do a small computer repair thing… and were considering an affiliate partnership with local “Tek Savvy” internet provider, but this is far more interesting to me.
Do you happen to know the approximate costs on equipment/infrastructure and do you know any of the Canadian open broadcast chanels, or should I start researching from scratch?
@Leo: I must confess to ignorance of the details of the regulatory environment in Canada, as well as the differences in logistics between starting a WISP there and starting one in the US. But I can direct you to someone on that side of the border who can help. Contact Tranzeo (http://www.tranzeo.com), which is located in BC just outside of Vancouver. They sell equipment and doubtless also know all about how to deploy it in Canada.
I am both amused and dismayed each time I read or hear of dialog like this. I live in rural Tennessee less than 60 miles from Nashville, yet there is no WISP, no cable, no DSL, and not even cell phone coverage (oops, if I turn my head just right I can get one bar – sometimes so ixnay on the EVDO too). The bloggers whine about getting only 16 MBPS download, while I have to be happy with my satellite link at 1.5 MBPS at $80/mo. Of course with satellite forget any kind of voip and live with throttling, signal interruptions, and of course latency. You guys with cable and DSL quit complaining. I’m in the central time zone between two fairly large cities, and I have this crappy Internet access, so by my estimate at least 1/2 of America is in the same boat with me.
@David: I understand your frustration; it’s the same frustration felt by people who are, say, a mile outside our coverage area before we get to them. Fortunately, there are multiple WISPs in Nashville, and it is very likely that if you encourage one of them to build out into your area it will do so. WISPs are not everywhere yet, but we’re working on it.
Am using dial-up.
Can you send Phoenix, Arizona info to check out?
Thanks much!
L
@L: Phoenix? There are tons of alternatives there. Go to http://www.wispdirectory.com/ and click on “Arizona.”
Brett’s article reports on many of the issues that we have encountered as a small WISP in west central MN.
Another issue that we have encountered is that we lease ITFS frequencies from an educational institution and we are now being forced to move to a different channel plan at an approximate cost of $70,000 with no compensation from the proponents ( large national providers ). Even when were earlier told that we would be compensated for the equipment and labor to get this done. It is a disgrace the way the FCC conducts its business.
Andy
@Andy: WISPs should not be reduced to begging for spectrum from schools. (My local school district had ITFS/EBS spectrum, and leased it to a speculator for many years, so we could not get it. The speculator did nothing with it…. Eventually the license expired and the district didn’t want to bother to renew it so that I could lease it.) We serve an important function — at least as important as ham radio operators. And yet hams have many megahertz of nonexclusively licensed spectrum and we have none.