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Can you feel it? The long simmering pot of Wi-Fi is reaching its keening boil. Many of us thought this was already underway as long as a year ago, but judging by the fever pitch of articles, investment, and hardware, we're reaching the top. According to Gartner's hype model, the next stage is the trough of disillusionment, but it's possible that Wi-Fi will avoid a deep trough given the "show-me" nature of most of the deployments. There's not a lot of Wi-Fi speculation; there's a lot of deployment, shipping products, and real use.
Sens. Allen, Boxer: Jumpstart Broadband Bill: This bill requires the reallocation of at least 255 MHz of spectrum below 5 GHz. It's very smart of these senators to want this, but this particular legislation may not be the right course. There is no national spectrum policy coordination in the United States. Congress proposes, the FCC disposes. The executive branch gets involved. Private industry lobbies.
But there's no uber-agency or uber-organization to which the powers of harmonization and allocation have been delegated to deal with the inevitable conflicts and greed and lack of technical knowledge.
In Europe and elsewhere, the World Radio Congress acts as a central body and each country needs to adopt its recommendations -- not a WTO "you must adopt" situation -- which is why Europe and Asia have much more coordination in how they use spectrum.
Boxer and Allen's bill, if passed, reopens the 1997, 1999, and 2000 budget bill acts which required a few hundred MHz to be reallocated mostly to balance the budget. In Boxer and Allen's favor, no money can change hands in unlicensed spectrum, so they must have a social policy goal. Still, the previous reallocations mostly failed; digital TV is stalled; and the military is fighting back on the long-allocated 5 GHz ranges.
My proposal is, of course, to rethink the 2.5 GHz ITU/MMDS band which was sold through sublicenses from nonprofits and educational institutions to Sprint and Worldcom. These license should be written off, redeemed, and reallocated with different power rules, and we'd have more than 100 MHz in the sweet spot already used in a way that could accommodate current users indefinitely.
Other News
Intersil offers results of real-world a vs. g test: In this detailed technical article, Intersil offers several interesting pieces of information, including a clear reason why OFDM works better than CCK, and the average throughput of 802.11a and 802.11g (compared against 22 Mbps PBCC from Texas Instruments, to boot). In the real-world environment they tested, 802.11g beat the crud out of 802.11a. The article includes excellent illustrations of average speed in the test environment overlaid on a map of the space.
North Carolina paper explores mom-and-pop-Fi: Another article on the growing trend of small entrepreneurs setting up efficient, high-speed, targeted wireless networks in areas underserved or not served at all by DSL and cable modems. The demand is there, but a patchwork of small providers may be better equipped to handle the particular demands of the community through trust (it's a neighbor) and small investments.
More detail on Lufthansa's in-flight data service: InfoWorld offers up much more detail about Lufthansa's upcoming test of Wi-Fi and Ethernet access to the Internet while in flight. For instance, Lufthansa will be using Cisco Wi-Fi equipment. Not mentioned is the FAA or other airline regulatory bodies' opinions of 2.4 GHz in-flight transmissions.
Everett, Washington, has plenty of Wi-Fi hot spots: Even smaller towns, such as this exurb of Seattle, has plenty of locations for free and fee Wi-Fi, with the level of interest high enough that more should explode soon.
Patrick Houston rounds up commercial Wi-Fi at Anchordesk: Patrick finds access while watching his son ice skate at a local rink, and rounds up what kind of commercial hot spot service is available and on the way.
Discussing Wi-Fi in a forum: Don't forget that I started up a forum to talk about any Wi-Fi issues (hot spots, operating systems, etc.) at the Wireless Networking Starter Kit site. The system allows simple threaded Web-based discussions. Join now!