(Originally posted at http://www.von.com/blogs/guest/2009/02/white-space-wi-fi-on-drugs.aspx )
Firstly, I’d like to say that I applaud the FCC for opening up
additional unlicensed spectrum for Internet use, but “white space” has
set a new record for going from zero to the Peak of Inflated
Expectations! When Larry Page speaks of Google’s vision of “Wi-Fi on
steroids,” it has a nice ring to it, but where have we heard that
before? Hold on. Maybe it was three years ago, when Intel touted that WiMAX “was like Wi-Fi on steroids”
and demonstrated a point-to-point link streaming video over 12 miles.
In the same article, Clearwire had “introduced a precursor to WiMAX
in four cities in Florida, Texas, and Minnesota, and hopes to use
Intel's technology to add 16 more cities by year end.” Fast-forward
three years, and Clearwire WiMAX service is available in Baltimore and
Portland, and promises download speeds of “up to 6mbps,” hardly steroid
like performance. What does it mean to be “on steroids” anyways?
Does it mean higher data rates? Increased range? Greater capacity? In
wireless, things are seldom cut and dry. Many have commented on
the increased range of a radio operating in the 50-700MHz bands as
opposed to the 2.4GHz or 5GHz unlicensed bands. Technically, this is
true, and these propagation characteristics are of value if there is a
wide area to cover, and a relatively few devices. To achieve this, the
base stations will look more like cell towers than wireless LAN APs, due
to the very long (6m at 50MHz!) wavelength at these low frequencies.
However, propagation is a double-edged sword. In environments where
capacity is more of a consideration, frequency re-use is an imperative,
and white space propagation will work against you. Many have
commented on the ability of 50-700MHz to penetrate walls. The answer
here is, “Yes, the free space loss in these bands will be anything from
11 to 32dB better than Wi-Fi, so outdoor range in open areas will be
much improved. And yes, the attenuation through materials such as
concrete will be improved (maybe up to 10dB) but the long wavelength
will make aperture effects -- like going through windows -- worse than
at 2.4GHz.” Bottom line -- the jury is still out! With respect to
data rates, it is important to appreciate that the channel widths in
white space are 6MHz as opposed to the 20MHz channels found with Wi-Fi
in the unlicensed bands today. For this reason alone, it will be
impossible for user performance to approach that which is currently
available today. Then when macro-cell architectures are factored in, it
won’t even be close. So much for Wi-Fi on amphetamines, Mr.
Commissioner! Stephen Rayment, BelAir’s CTO, recently drilled down
into many of the specifics around white space in an online webinar. Sitting on IEEE committees, Stephen
has first-hand visibility into many of the issues related to standards
adoption, chipset availability and so on. It’s definitely worth a
listen. The industry does itself a disservice when it uses sound
bites to articulate a position. Had Larry Page or Kevin Martin said,
“Television white space will allow the Open Internet to bridge the
Digital Divide, by bringing the web to rural areas across America,” it
would have been equally compelling and more accurate. As it
stands, the Gartner Hype Cycle lives on with “white space,” but we’d all
be better off if more of an effort was made to temper expectations with
realistic dialogue. The eventual disillusionment would be less acute. Drugs
make for bad similes. We tell our kids that steroids are bad. They’re
bad for athletes and they’re equally bad for technology. That’s
my .02! Martin Suter Martin Suter is vice president of
business development at BelAir Networks, a provider of broadband mesh
solutions for Wi-Fi, WiMAX, 4.9 GHz Public Safety and 5.9 GHz ITS
networks. Previously, Martin was the CEO at Cohda Wireless, where he
raised the company’s profile and negotiated a licensing deal with a
Fortune 100 vendor in its core franchise. Prior to Cohda, he was vice
president of business development at MeshNetworks Inc., a classic tech
transfer/disruptive technology success story that achieved a major
liquidity event for its investors in Q4/2004 with its acquisition by
Motorola. Martin also was responsible for building several high profile
alliances with and for leading technology companies, including Fujitsu,
Microsoft, Netscape, Sun Microsystems, and Teradata. Additionally,
Martin has successfully negotiated technology transfer, distribution
and/or licensing deals with companies like 3Com, BioChem Pharma, Dow
Chemical, Exodus, Fujitsu, IBM, Microsoft, Motorola, Netscape and Sun.
