Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Unlicensed wireless: More uses on the way

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 13:37:52 -0400

Unlicensed wireless: More uses on the way

Grant Gross, IDG News Service, Washington Bureau

5/14/03

The use of unlicensed radio spectrum in the U.S. is about to
expand from Wi-Fi devices running wireless home networks to
mass-market services, including a broadband alternative to cable
and DSL and an alternative to cellular phones, according to a
group of wireless experts at a discussion of unlicensed wireless
technologies at the U.S. Department of Commerce Tuesday.

Internet service providers are already using unlicensed radio
spectrum to offer broadband access to customers in rural areas,
including parts of Iowa, Illinois and other states, and some
panelists at the Department of Commerce forum predicted that
mobile phones would soon have 802.11 chips to allow voice
communications over unlicensed radio spectrum.
But the forum, which focussed on the potential of unlicensed
spectrum, as opposed to licensed spectrum owned by cellular
service providers and other companies, had its dissenters.
Cellular providers said U.S. regulators shouldn't rush too quickly
into opening up large chunks of the radio spectrum to unlicensed
uses. Technologies using unlicensed spectrum have many
limitations, other critics said.

A Spectrum Policy Task Force report, released by the U.S. Federal
Communications Commission in November, calls for the FCC to move
away from a "command-and-control" model of managing spectrum
rights, in which spectrum uses are limited based on regulatory
decisions, to a combination of an unlicensed "commons" model and a
licensed "exclusive-use" model, in which licensees have exclusive
and transferable flexible use rights. The report is available at
http://www.fcc.gov/sptf/.

On Thursday, the FCC will consider making additional spectrum in
the 5 gigahertz band available for unlicensed wireless uses.

Brian Fontes, vice president of government relations at cellular
provider Cingular Wireless LLC, jokingly called the lure of large
chunks of unlicensed spectrum "eye candy" or "crack cocaine" for
regulators at the FCC.

"You are losing the focus on creating the proper balance between
the allocated and licensed versus the unlicensed (spectrum),"
Fontes said. "You're talking hundreds of megahertz, and maybe
thousands of megahertz of spectrum for unlicensed use. Where is
the comparable amount of spectrum available for commercial uses?"

Fontes compared business models based on unlicensed spectrum to
overhyped dot-coms, with some ideas that will succeed but the
"vast majority" of which will fail. "How does all of this fit into
the business model?" he asked. "All of these (services) have to be
in the context of a business."

But Ed Thomas, chief of the FCC Office of Engineering and
Technology, questioned whether changes in the FCC's direction
would improve the process. "At the end of the day, the question
is, Is it working?" he said of spectrum policy. "It ain't broke
... and there's no fact that says changing the rules for a model
that's presently working will result in a better model."

Others at the forum trumpeted unlicensed spectrum as a way for new
services to come to market quickly. Neil Mulholland, chief
executive officer of Prairie iNet LLC, said his company is already
using unlicensed wireless spectrum to provide broadband access to
120 communities in rural Iowa and Illinois.

But Theodore Schell, a general partner in Apax Partners Inc. and
chairman of Wi-Fi access provider Cometa Networks Inc., said he
was "skeptical to the extreme" that Wi-Fi would work as a
broadband solution serving large geographical areas other than in
rural parts. The cost of scaling such systems, plus problems with
loss of service in wooded or hilly areas, make Wi-Fi best used
over limited ranges, he said.

Others had even more ambitious goals for Wi-Fi. Thomas Lee,
managing director of wireless services for J.P. Morgan Chase &
Co., predicted that Wi-Fi powered phones would become popular
within a couple of years, especially with young consumers used to
getting low-cost music on the Internet. "This is an opportunity
for a consumer to pay virtually nothing," he said of phone service
provided through Wi-Fi receivers.

Others were skeptical of widespread Wi-Fi phone use, questioning
if users would be willing to hunt for wireless hotspots to get
phone connections outside their homes. Voice quality issues may
also hold back voice-over-IP over wireless networks, said Mark
Whitton, chief technology officer of wireless networks at Nortel
Networks Corp. "As a primary method for voice communications, I
think it's a difficult sell," he said.

Lee predicted the main benefit of unlicensed wireless services
would be to drive down the cost of competing services such as DSL
or cable broadband Internet access.

Asked what the FCC and Department of Commerce's National
Telecommunications and Information Administration can do to make
life easier for wireless providers, most at the day-long forum
asked for certainty from regulators.

Kevin Werbach, founder of the Supernova Group LLC, which organizes
conferences on decentralized technologies, called on the FCC to
set up minimal regulations, then get out of the way and let the
market and technologies hash out how to play fairly with each
other over the wireless spectrum.

"If the rules are too strict, if the rules are too much about the
way spectrum is used, they increase inefficiency," he said. "If
the rules are too minimal, we don't have some baseline that
protects against issues of interference. ... As long as we have a
minimal set of rules that does that, let people come up with
solutions to our problems."

http://wireless.itworld.com/4279/030514spectrumuses

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