GovernmentExecutive.com

Spectrum Dis-harmony

The 190-nation World Radio Conference in Geneva ended today with Europe opting for a slightly different slice of frequency bands for next generation broadband mobile services than North and South America and the largest countries in Asia.

Richard Russell, the U.S. ambassador to the conference and associate director for technology in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said on a teleconference call with the press that the United States, along with other countries in the Americas as well as China, India, South Korea and Japan, had agreed to designate the 698 megahertz to 806 megahertz band for mobile broadband use.

That band will open up for mobile use in the United States when television broadcasters switch to a digital format in 2009. It is a real sweet spot for mobile broadband because it penetrates buildings and cars better than higher frequencies. The rest of Asia along with countries in Europe decided to designate a higher band (from 790 MHz to 862 MHz) for mobile broadband, Russell said.

Europe's decision means Russell's goal before going into the conference for global spectrum harmonization for mobile broadband was not met. But he said that enough countries had opted for the lower band to allow billions of people around the world to reap what he called a "digital dividend" from the economies of scale gained from manufacturing all kinds of new whizbang wireless gadgets and gizmos for that band.

I guess we'll just have to buy another broadband wireless gizmo when we travel to Europe. (Hopefully the exchange rate will be better.)

The C-Band Compromise

Outside of the Americas, countries backed use of 3.4 to 4.2 gigahertz for next-generation mobile services, a move that the United States strongly opposed because the U.S. Defense Department uses that band for radars as well as commercial and Defense C-band satellite systems.

Russell - like Mick Jagger - knows you can't always get what you want, so the United States agreed to a footnoted compromise, which would allow countries to use a sliver of that band (3.4 to 3.6 GHz) for mobile broadband.

Navy Wins, the Beeb Loses

Going into the conference, Europe made a big push to carve out additional frequencies in the 4 to 10 MHz high frequency bands for use by shortwave broadcasters who wanted to use the spectrum to support new noise-free broadcasting based on the Digital Radio Mondial standard.

The Defense Department strongly opposed such a move because the services have found ways to send data traffic over this spectrum, once used for Morse code. Other nations also use this spectrum for military command and control, including Australia, where Boeing is in the midst of a project to modernize the HF network used by the Australia Defence Force.

Russell said the broadcasters lost their bid for additional HF spectrum at the conference, leaving HF military frequencies free from interference by broadcasters such as the BBC.

Personally, I like the hisses and snaps that historically went along with listening to The Beeb (a.k.a. the BBC) and don't know if listening to it in near-FM quality would be the same experience.

A Wimax Win

Some countries - notably China - had agenda items at the WRC, which would have allowed satellite operation in the 2.5 GHz band, which Sprint Nextel and Clearwire plan to use for Wimax-based terrestrial broadband service.

Terrestrial wireless and satellite services don't mix too well, a position endorsed at the WRC. Russell said that ensured that Wimax services will be free from satellite interference.

The Americas Team

Russell said the United States was "extremely pleased" with the backing of its positions at the conference and said this resulted in no small part from a united negotiating position developed by all the countries in North and South America.

Diplomacy. It works.

Post a Comment

To post a comment, you must provide a name and a valid e-mail address. Messages must be limited to 400 words. By using this Service you agree not to post material that is obscene, harassing, defamatory, or otherwise objectionable. Although Government Executive does not monitor comments posted to this site (and has no obligation to), it reserves the right to delete, edit, or move any material that it deems to be in violation of this rule.