Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Intel issues call to arms on spectrum

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 23:42:00 -0400

Intel issues call to arms on spectrum

By Ian Lynch at
ITU Telecom World in Geneva

14-10-2003

Start paying attention to spectrum allocation,
Intel communications boss warns conference

Wireless will be the technology that brings the next five billion people
onto the internet, Intel has predicted.
But the chip giant said its allocation is inefficient and needs to be
improved. It believes that governments which free up chunks of spectrum at
less than 1GHz for data transmission will gain an economic advantage over
those that do not.

Speaking at the ITU Telecom World conference in Geneva, Sean Maloney,
executive vice president and general manager of Intel's Communications Group
told delegates that prime resources were being given to broadcasting, a
"50-year-old technology that tells many what a few think".

He warned: "Spectrum is going to become more important and people need to
get involved. The public needs to pay far more attention to spectrum
allocation than it does."

Technologies such as Wi-Fi and WiMax (extending wireless signal reach to
70km) are real alternatives to digital subscriber line technology, and
infrastructure savings could be made by governments adopting a frequency of
less than 1GHz and deploying wireless broadband, Maloney predicted.

"What's needed," he later told vnunet.com, "is a chunk of spectrum at around
400Mhz. At that frequency we aren't affected by rain and we can lash through
walls."

But most Western governments, including the UK, appear set on allocating
3.5GHz for data, while technologies such as 802.11 and Bluetooth run at the
non-licensed 2.4GHz area of the spectrum.

"The Department of Trade and Industry has said [3.5GHz] will happen and
Wi-Fi will be used," said Maloney. "But while the signal can get to schools
and hospitals it can't go through walls."

Inside the building the signal had to be constantly re-transmitted, he
added.

But it is doubtful whether re-allocation of spectrum is feasible in anything
other than the long term.

"The innovation we see in wireless is in the unlicensed spectrum and I don't
think that will be changing any time soon," Alex Gruzen, senior vice
president of mobile computing at HP, told vnunet.com.

Gruzen also questioned whether it was really a public issue that companies
are developing technologies requiring sub-1GHz spectrum.

"Richer data services [lower down the spectrum] could drive greater revenues
for carriers but how do you get there? By the carriers continuing to
innovate to improve services or by re-allocating spectrum?" he said.

http://www.vnunet.com/News/1144335

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