National Broadband Plan emphasizes wireless technology, subscription-based business models
Apr 1, 2010 3:25 PM, Russell Brown
The FCC’s National Broadband Plan provides this chart, which shows current spectrum allocation in the United States.
Select image to enlarge.
The National Broadband Plan from the FCC has been released to the public, and within its 376 pages, it outlines a path to expand broadband access across America. The plan not only attempts to predict the proliferation of new technologies 10 years down the road, but it also looks to the past to find examples of improvements to technology that have fostered new markets and businesses that did not previously exist. Although the FCC is not actively participating in developing these technologies, it is trying to carve out spectrum space to make room for them.
Where will it come from?
The FCC has set a goal of opening up 300MHz of spectrum within five years and 500MHz within 10 years. The burning question for broadcasters is, where will this spectrum come from? Many people think of the airwaves as they do water: It’s everywhere, so how can it be limited? And when you look at a frequency chart, the broadcast TV bands really stand out.
The FCC plans to obtain spectrum from a number of sources, including the Wireless Communications Service Band, the Advanced Wireless Services Band, the Upper D Block of the 700MHz band, the Mobile Satellite Services Band and a large slice from the broadcast TV band. And this only covers the first 300MHz the FCC wants in the next five years.
What it’s for
Over the past 76 years of the FCC’s existence, the radio frequency spectrum has been fully allocated from 9kHz all the way up to 300GHz, which does not leave a lot of room for new technologies. What are these new technologies that the FCC is trying to make way for? In short, it’s “broadband,” that high-speed link from your DSL, cable or other ISP.
According to ATT, usage of the iPhone has caused a 5000 percent increase in the data traffic on its wireless network in just the past three years, and wireless providers are saying they each will need 40MHz-150MHz of new spectrum in the next few years. According to one study, this means a total of 1720MHz will be needed for wireless services by 2020.
What is this spectrum going to be used for? The FCC predicts a wired and wirelessly connected future America, and, indeed, in the past decade, there has been explosive growth in wireless devices and applications. But the FCC is looking beyond this and sees medical records and images being transferred from doctor to specialist; remote classrooms having guest speakers; and children being able to attend class from home. There is a world of things that a nationwide, high-speed wireless network can provide if we only give it enough spectrum space, according to the FCC.
How broadcast TV fits in
The largest slice of existing spectrum space the FCC wants to reallocate is in the broadcast TV band — 120MHz of spectrum in one large segment across the entire United States. Although not stated outright, the FCC talks about the need for spectrum that is open across the country, so devices and services will work wherever people are.
The FCC proposes several ways to obtain this 120MHz spectrum from broadcasters. The first is straightforward enough: update the rules for channel separation and distance for TV stations. This makes sense because technology has made great strides in the past several decades. Long-gone are the days of requiring UHF stations to be spaced every six channels because the early UHF tuners could not handle them being any closer, and bringing stations into closer channel groupings would help consolidate spectrum. (This would have been easier if it had been part of the DTV conversion, but it was not.)
The next idea from the FCC would have a very limited effect: two or more stations share a single channel. Instead of each station having a full 19.4Mb/s stream, it would be sliced up into small segments, and broadcasting would be sent back to the old days of a single program stream. It’s hard to believe that many broadcasters would opt for this, because it is effectively removes any possibility for expansion in the future, but another section of the plan suggests required channel sharing.
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