Re: [WISPA] Martin's call for more radio frequency spectrum foremergency responders
[too long and off-topic academic rant, delete now unless you have strong stomach] On Wed, Sep 28, 2005 at 12:45:32AM -0500, John Scrivner wrote: I see you have made your introduction K. :-) I think you guys will find this lady's enthusiasm toward policy change to be no less than revolutionary. She has an eye toward a complete rework of the FCC (as in destroy it and rebuild governance of spectrum and policy from the ground up) to allow for more progressive spectrum and related policy. I have explained that we are all still attempting a more standard approach to working within the framework of our existing system a little longer before we are ready to start burning the FCC at the stake. While there would be a certain pleasure in seeing the system rebuilt from scratch it would be of little use if it ended up being rebuilt by people who do not care about our needs as an industry. At least some policy bodes well for us now or we would not even be talking here today. john, you overestimate my enthusiasm. s revolution isn't the goal, congruence (between policy and our-best-understanding-of-the-world, aka truth) is the goal. i don't know enough about the fcc to foment revolution, and frankly, i'm not even sure what revolution means this decade. i admit i have heard gentlemen talk about low power squatting on channel 2 to broadcast local city/state public governance proceedings, w tagline: this is your democracy, on unconstitutionally licensed spectrum. any questions? http://openspectrum.city.state.us. but i don't know anyone who actually wants (or plans) to break federal law. if i were going about that i would try to get city and state law behind me first (california has some history of state legislation that is 'empirically ahead' of federal legislation, e.g., props 71, 215, tax breaks for alternative energy investments. actually, california's opening up some spectrum for public sector research and experimentation would be tame compared to what california has effectively said to the feds on several other issues...) [for a good 'broadcasting is unconstitutional' rant, see http://www.frankston.com/public/writing.asp?name=20050923-0460 ] alas...i have learned this month that many underground groups are already using 'licensed' spectrum for their own unlicensed private purposes so i reckon the only way to be innovative there would be to do something in support of the public sector. conveniently, there is great need there. inconveniently (and correlated), there is less monetary payoff there... but whatever its instantiation, revolution is a last resort, and it's not clear to me that we have exhausted other options. i know several quite bright, progressive, enthusiastic people at the fcc (seriously!), among other agencies (i admit i know noone at fema). what they lack is irrefutable empirical (or analytical, or realistically simulated) evidence that proposed changes have extraordinary quantified (in $$$, or hours, or lives, or, bandwidth, or coverage, but probably mostly $$$) advantages over the status quo. but john's got the spirit of my passion quite right -- i am witnessing a deeply widening gap betweeen policy and our best understanding of the world, and i am [wearing myself out] trying to put scientific resources toward narrowing this gap. i'm not sure what specific data to ask for at the moment because have little insight into what data i could get. my exceedingly pie-in-the-sky and yet apparently unusually pointed questions are: what's the most effective, economic way to provide for the nation: * a layer of 'cellphone' bandwidth across the country? (that might mean a long-haul backbone to tie together regional wifis -- let's figure out what that costs too. e.g., if you all had an oc192 optical fiber backbone connecting WISPs all across the country to eachother, how many WISPs could pay the access fees to connect to it? or, what would those access fees have to be for you to be able to afford what-you'd-need? * a layer of communication for emergency services across the country? (as you want to define it) * N Mbps (e.g., 100Mbps) worth of digital communications bandwidth to each building? each person? [all backed up by compelling economic and engineering analyses] i know these are hand-wavy, but they are also the numbers that ultimately should inform enlightened public policy for digital communications. so, given that we might actually need to build and measure some wireless testbeds to validate/refine cost and throughput models, i think WISPA data could go a long way here in helping the academic sector Imagine the [most cost-effective] Possibilities. another key question for researchers trying to build new technologies for you to deploy: what measurement support do we need to build into network architecture to assess and track the costs of resulting
Re: [WISPA] Martin's call for more radio frequency spectrum foremergency responders
Auction, I hate that evil word. Really guys, if there is any time to hammer congressional legislators and Home land security personelle, NOW is the time. Before our precious spectrum is auctioned off to the special interets. Auctioning off 700Mhz to a major IELC could be the death of independent rural WISPs. I got an idea, why don't they give the FULL 700Mhz to the 700 ISPs, spread out decentrally across the country, and in trade all 7000 WISPs will give FREE access / priority access to public safety officials as needed. (except public safety buy's their own CPEs). Instantly the staff of 7000 ISPs across the country available for disaster relief. it would be like the Navy reserves but instead the WISP reserves. Basically anyone that is granted a non-exclusive license of 700Mhz must first register as a volunteer emergency communications AID, and conform to guidelines for documenting configuration criteria for the public safety workers. Why not AVOID the whole expendature althogeather for the governement, and still accomplish public safety, when WISP can already donate the service? Better yet, why not jsut grant the public safety budget to WISPs to expand their network, to accommodate public safety needs. Lets see the RUS grant get substituted with the Public safety grant. But auction? I don't see how that could benefit anyone. Communications is a necessary utility, not a luxury to auction off for a special interest. Tom DeReggi RapidDSL Wireless, Inc IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband - Original Message - From: George [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Monday, September 26, 2005 10:06 PM Subject: [WISPA] Martin's call for more radio frequency spectrum foremergency responders Snip/ Martin's call for more radio frequency spectrum for emergency responders came after Senators John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) called for Congress to move forward on legislation that would free up radio spectrum by requiring television stations to switch from analog to digital broadcasts. A move to digital television (DTV) would free up spectrum in the upper 700-MHz radio frequency band for commercial and public safety uses. The FCC has said it would give 24 MHz of that spectrum to public safety users and auction off 60 MHz for commercial uses. /snip http://www.networkworld.com/edge/news/2005/092205-fcc-katrina.html?nlcode=nledgenewsalert7636 I got an idea, why don't they just open it up to wisps all across the country, let us use ths spectrum for what we are now doing and then in the event of another disaster, there will already be gear in place to keep everyone going? George -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.344 / Virus Database: 267.11.6/111 - Release Date: 9/23/2005 -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] Martin's call for more radio frequency spectrum foremergency responders
[not reading this list regularly, but tom hit a nerve]: tom et al caida (www.caida.org) is an internet data analysis/research organization whose mission includes informing public policy, aimed toward improving policy 'toward congruence' with our best empirical (scientifically grounded) understanding of the relevant technological issues/constraints/parameters. i am no expert on spectrum policy, but afaict the difference between having huge effect and having no effect is sufficiently formalized reporting/analysis of Real World Operational Experiences (this means you), written in way that will convey to scientists (this means me), as well as to the public, what happens when technology gets deployed in reality. one underutilized option is collaborating with university researchers to quantitatively document (1) potential deliverables under various regulatory scenaraios (2) successes and failures under existing regulatory scenarios. caida Really wants to help support forward motion here, but we are desperately lacking hard data. emergency situations are obviously not the time to talk about research, but i want to make it clear that if you still don't have what you want by the time this emergency is over, please don't underestimate the value of hard data and careful articulation of the experiences you have had, so that scientists can come in and help compile them into comprehensive and unassailable demonstrations to their funding agencies of why change is essential. i believe the right kind of analyses/reporting could reduce the length of this fight from 10 years to 2. (ok, maybe 20 to 4...) but the research community and the deployment communities are going to have to [find time and resources] to work together. we've never needed eachother more. k On Tue, Sep 27, 2005 at 10:18:55PM -0400, Tom DeReggi wrote: Auction, I hate that evil word. Really guys, if there is any time to hammer congressional legislators and Home land security personelle, NOW is the time. Before our precious spectrum is auctioned off to the special interets. Auctioning off 700Mhz to a major IELC could be the death of independent rural WISPs. I got an idea, why don't they give the FULL 700Mhz to the 700 ISPs, spread out decentrally across the country, and in trade all 7000 WISPs will give FREE access / priority access to public safety officials as needed. (except public safety buy's their own CPEs). Instantly the staff of 7000 ISPs across the country available for disaster relief. it would be like the Navy reserves but instead the WISP reserves. Basically anyone that is granted a non-exclusive license of 700Mhz must first register as a volunteer emergency communications AID, and conform to guidelines for documenting configuration criteria for the public safety workers. Why not AVOID the whole expendature althogeather for the governement, and still accomplish public safety, when WISP can already donate the service? Better yet, why not jsut grant the public safety budget to WISPs to expand their network, to accommodate public safety needs. Lets see the RUS grant get substituted with the Public safety grant. But auction? I don't see how that could benefit anyone. Communications is a necessary utility, not a luxury to auction off for a special interest. Tom DeReggi RapidDSL Wireless, Inc IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband - Original Message - From: George [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Monday, September 26, 2005 10:06 PM Subject: [WISPA] Martin's call for more radio frequency spectrum foremergency responders Snip/ Martin's call for more radio frequency spectrum for emergency responders came after Senators John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) called for Congress to move forward on legislation that would free up radio spectrum by requiring television stations to switch from analog to digital broadcasts. A move to digital television (DTV) would free up spectrum in the upper 700-MHz radio frequency band for commercial and public safety uses. The FCC has said it would give 24 MHz of that spectrum to public safety users and auction off 60 MHz for commercial uses. /snip http://www.networkworld.com/edge/news/2005/092205-fcc-katrina.html?nlcode=nledgenewsalert7636 I got an idea, why don't they just open it up to wisps all across the country, let us use ths spectrum for what we are now doing and then in the event of another disaster, there will already be gear in place to keep everyone going? George -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.344 / Virus Database
