Hello Jack,
Good to see you're back on track with, IMO, a proper response to the 11GHz
question/concerns.
Your initial comment came off as who cares and we don't have time for this.
John simply dittoed your comments, so what was the group left to believe? I
apologize if I misunderstood your intent.
Your questions/response below illustrate the type of post I would have
expected from you in the first place.
Best,
Brad
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of Jack Unger
Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 1:33 AM
To: WISPA General List
Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz
Brad,
I think you may be misquoting or misunderstanding me. No good can come
from that. Real questions need to be asked and need to be correctly
answered before we risk our reputation by filing comments with the FCC
that are technically incomplete or technically incorrect.
Here's a repost of my original post.
****************** Begin Original Post *********************************
It would be good to know the minimum required dish size now and the
changes that FiberTower is proposing before deciding what to do or say.
I'm not sure this dish-size issue would impact any WISPs so we may want
to ask ourselves if there are more important issues that we need to be
focusing on, given the limited time and resources that we have.
I think this is an issue that the licensed microwave vendors will
probably deal with adequately, without harming our interests. When we
decide to purchase a licensed 11 GHz link, we'd be buying it from them
anyway.
Finally, WISPA doesn't have an engineering staff that can adequately
analyze the technical implications and prepare an informed technical
response to submit to the FCC.
******************** End Original Post *********************************
NOWHERE did I say that the licensed frequency bands are not important to
WISPS. Licensed backhauls are very important to WISPs. WISPs SHOULD use
licensed backhauls wherever interference levels are high, where
reliability is crucial, where throughput needs are high, and/or where
full duplex links are needed.
NOWHERE did I say that the focus of the group should be limited to
unlicensed frequencies only.
TO BE CRYSTAL CLEAR, I will restate each original paragraph and I will
list the questions that each paragraph is implicitly asking.
****************************************************************************
***
PARAGRAPH 1 - "It would be good to know the minimum required dish size
now and the changes that FiberTower is proposing before deciding what to
do or say". In other words, we need to know the minimum dish size now
and we need to know what dish sizes FiberTower is proposing before we
can begin to understand if there is any affect on us and before we can
formulate our position.
QUESTION: SO WHAT ARE THOSE DISH SIZES NOW, BEFORE A RULES CHANGE AND
AFTER THE PROPOSED RULES CHANGE?
QUESTION: WHAT'S THE TRUE IMPACT, IF ANY, ON US IF THE FCC ALLOWS
SMALLER DISH SIZES TO BE USED?
QUESTION: ONCE WE UNDERSTAND THE TRUE IMPACT, IF ANY, WHAT POSITION
SHOULD WE TAKE BEFORE THE FCC?
****************************************************************************
**
PARAGRAPH 2 - "I'm not sure this dish-size issue would impact any WISPs
so we may want to ask ourselves if there are more important issues that
we need to be focusing on, given the limited time and resources that we
have".
QUESTION: DOES A REDUCTION IN DISH SIZE REALLY AFFECT US?
QUESTION: HOW DOES IT REALLY AFFECT US? ARE 11 GHz FREQUENCIES CURRENTLY
IN SHORT SUPPLY IN THE AREAS WHERE MOST WISPs OPERATE?
QUESTION: HAS ANY WISP EVER BEEN DENIED A LICENSE FOR AN 11 GHz
FREQUENCY? IF SO, WHERE? HOW OFTEN HAS THIS HAPPENED?
QUESTION: ARE THERE MORE IMPORTANT ISSUES BEFORE THE FCC THAT WE NEED TO
DEVOTE OUR TIME AND ENERGY TO? WHAT ARE THOSE ISSUES? WHITE SPACE? WISPS
AS AN INFORMATION SERVICE? FCC's BROADBAND SERVICES SURVEY? CALEA? OTHERS??
****************************************************************************
*
PARAGRAPH 3 - "I think this is an issue that the licensed microwave
vendors will probably deal with adequately, without harming our
interests. When we decide to purchase a licensed 11 GHz link, we'd be
buying it from them anyway".
QUESTION - IF ALLOWING SMALLER DISH SIZES WAS GOING TO CREATE
INTERFERENCE PROBLEMS WOULDN'T THE COMPANIES THAT MAKE 11 GHz EQUIPMENT
BE AGAINST THE PROPOSED CHANGES BECAUSE THAT WOULD RESULT IN THEM
SELLING FEWER LICENSED 11 GHz LINKS AND HAVING HIGHER CUSTOMER SUPPORT
COSTS?
***************************************************************************
PARAGRAPH 4 - "Finally, WISPA doesn't have an engineering staff that can
adequately analyze the technical implications and prepare an informed
technical response to submit to the FCC".
QUESTION - DO WE HAVE THE ENGINEERING KNOWLEDGE TO REALLY KNOW WHAT THE
TRUE EFFECTS OF ALLOWING SMALLER DISH SIZES WILL BE?
QUESTION - A SMALLER ANTENNA WILL HAVE LARGER SIDELOBES. IS THIS REALLY
AN ISSUE OR ARE 11 GHz ANTENNAS NORMALLY MOUNTED WITH A FEW FEET OF
VERTICAL SEPARATION ANYWAY SO THAT A MARGINAL INCREASE IN SIDELOBES WILL
REALLY HAVE NO IMPACT ON ANYONE ELSE ANYWAY?
QUESTION - SHOULD THE FCC GIVE ANY WEIGHT OR CREDIBILITY TO OUR OPINIONS
AND OUR GUESSES OR SHOULD THEY ONLY GIVE WEIGHT TO REAL ENGINEERING
ANALYSIS?
QUESTION - WHO IN WISPA IS AN ENGINEER AND HAS ACTUALLY DESIGNED,
ENGINEERED, AND DEPLOYED A SIGNIFICANT NUMBER OF 11 GHz LINKS? SURELY
SOMEONE HAS... WHO IS THAT PERSON? WILL THEY STEP UP AND DO SOME REAL
ENGINEERING ANALYSIS FOR US ON THIS ISSUE?
QUESTION: WILL THAT ENGINEERING ANALYSIS SHOW THAT THERE IS ANY REAL
IMPACT TO OUR ABILITY TO OBTAIN AND USE LICENSED 11 GHz LINKS IF THE FCC
ALLOWS SMALLER ANTENNAS TO BE USED?
QUESTION: WILL ALLOWING SMALLER ANTENNAS ACTUALLY BENEFIT US BECAUSE OUR
COSTS TO DEPLOY LICENSED LINKS WILL BE LOWER? (SMALLER ANTENNAS COST
LESS TO BUY AND SMALLER ANTENNAS COST LESS TO MOUNT ON TOWERS).
***************************************************************************
That's it, Brad. Your help would be most appreciated to get real
answers. If I'm "off the mark" as you believed, that's OK with me as
long as it leads to an understanding of what the real issues are and
builds our credibility with the FCC, the manufacturers, and the public
at large. Real understanding benefits everybody.
Best Regards,
jack
Brad Belton wrote:
Agreed. Just getting caught up on some of my email readings and strongly
believe Jack and John are off the mark here.
6GHz, 11GHz, 18GHz, 23GHz, 24GHz, 60GHz and 80-90GHz should all be
important
to us as a group. Any frequency that can be used by fixed wireless
operators should be important to the group.
For Jack and John to assume the focus as a group should be limited to UL
frequencies is short sighted to say the least. Many operations, ours
included, are already utilizing licensed spectrum were we can.
Best,
Brad
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of Tom DeReggi
Sent: Monday, March 26, 2007 2:10 PM
To: WISPA General List
Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz
Anything related to 11Ghz, should be WISPs concern. It is my belief that
all serious unlicensed ISPs will at some point start to migrate to
Licensed
spectrums for backhauls. 11Ghz is one of the few upgrade options available
for WISP's that designed their existing backhaul to 5.8Ghz functionality.
(meaning needing 4ft dish 11Ghz to reach equivellent distances of 5.8Ghz
2ft
dish links, in practicality). There really aren't very many Long range
backhaul spectrum range options out there. Relaxing the rules could
result
in the inabilty for many WISPs to obtain 11Ghz licenses, because of
unavailable spectrum, when they are ready to need it. A 2ft dish
beamwidth
(9-10 degrees) will cover the width of most of a small city at 10 miles.
(Sorry I didn't do the Angle math yet). Compared to that of 4 ft dish
beamwidths. As much as I'd like a 2 ft Dish, how would that effect my
future abilty to get a license? Thats an important question. Fibertower
wants 2ft dishes today because they are ready to buy up the licenses
today.
Are the rest of the WISPs ready to buy the licenses today? How much
license
space is available still? I think some propogation data and current
saturation data (number of links / potential for more links) would need to
be disclosed first to develop a relevant opinion. And how would the rules
effect cost? Currently 11Ghz is significantly more expensive to obtain
because of dish size. If smaller more advanced dishes were allowed, a 2ft
dish that had the characteristics of 3-4ft dishes, would those dishes be
more expensive because of their unique better characterisitcs? The truth
is, every provider would chose 11Ghz over 18Ghz, if they could get away
with
a smaller dish. It would likely lead to less use of 18Ghz and 23 Ghz. Is
18Ghz getting saturated? If so it would be relevent to allow 11Ghz to take
over the load. But I'd argue that 18Ghz should be near at capacity before
11Ghz be allowed to be more leanent in antenna size.
The bigger fight for smaller antennas is to allow 6Ghz to be allowed to
use
4 ft dishes. 6ft dish requirement is insane. If 6Ghz was allowed to use
4ft
dished, it would then give another option for long range, (within a
realistic antenna size for roof tops), then justifying the allowance for
11Ghz to have smaller antennas. The question is, why isn't Fibertower
just
using 18Ghz in their applications? Can they prove that 18Ghz is to
limiting
or unavailable for them?
Tom DeReggi
RapidDSL & Wireless, Inc
IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband
John Scrivner wrote:
Thank you Jack. You said it better than I could have.
:-)
Scriv
Jack Unger wrote:
Dylan,
It would be good to know the minimum required dish size now and the
changes that FiberTower is proposing before deciding what to do or say.
I'm not sure this dish-size issue would impact any WISPs so we may
want to ask ourselves if there are more important issues that we need
to be focusing on, given the limited time and resources that we have.
I think this is an issue that the licensed microwave vendors will
probably deal with adequately, without harming our interests. When we
decide to purchase a licensed 11 GHz link, we'd be buying it from them
anyway.
Finally, WISPA dosn't have an engineering staff that can adequately
analyze the technical implications and prepare an informed technical
responese to submit to the FCC.
jack
Dylan Oliver wrote:
I recall some past discussion bemoaning the large dish sizes required
for
licensed links .. I just found this in the latest "Rural Spectrum
Scanner"
from Bennett Law (http://www.bennetlaw.com/rss.php?vol=13&issue=12).
Should
WISPA endorse this? I'm not familiar with the details of 11 GHz
regulation.
*FCC Seeks Comment on the Use of Smaller Antennas in the 11 GHz Band*
The FCC has released a *Public Notice* announcing that it has adopted
a *Notice
of Proposed Rulemaking* seeking comment on whether to permit the
installation of smaller antennas by Fixed Service (FS) operators in the
10.7-11.7 GHz band. The FCC initiated the rulemaking pursuant to a
Petition
for Rulemaking filed by FiberTower, Inc., a wireless backhaul provider,
proposing to change the technical parameters that would permit the
use of
smaller FS antennas with reduced mainbeam gain, increased beamwidth, and
modified sidelobe suppression in the 11 GHz band. The FCC seeks
comment on
whether FiberTower, Inc.'s proposals would serve the public interest by
facilitating the efficient use of the 11 GHz band while protecting other
users in the band from interference due to the use of smaller
antennas. The
pleading cycle has not yet been established.
Best,