FCC FREE INTERNET on the Wireless Web
By Azam on October 13, 2008
The FCC has indicated the sell a currently unused block of airwaves with a condition that the owners offer free Internet access. The proposal for free access to wireless web has been proposed previously by a number of firms working with local communities, and Google has provided policy proposals to make spectrum available to the public for free. The private telecom sector has been widely opposed to the auctioning of the airwaves and competition. The FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has proposed selling the unused airwaves to any bidder willing to devote at least 25% of the spectrum for free Internet access for 95% of the country.
FCC chairman Kevin Martin has said repeatedly he favors extending free access to the Internet and has proposed auctioning off the portion of the spectrum that would be dedicated to free wireless use.
The FCC decided to auction the spectrum off to a company that would dedicate some of the spectrum to free wireless. The winner must reach half the US population in four years and 95% by 2018.
“There’s a social obligation in making sure everybody can participate in the next generation of broadband services,” Martin told the newspaper USA Today in an interview in August.
FCC engineers released an analysis late Friday indicating that wireless Internet activity on the unused channels won’t interfere with cellphone connections on an adjacent swath owned primarily by T-Mobile USA.
Citing tests conducted in September, the FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology said a T-Mobile phone and a test device operating on the neighboring airwaves, even when sitting next to each other, “does not necessarily result in interference.”
“The engineers are confirming that this can be used for broadband services without interfering with spectrum users next door,” Martin told Dow Jones in an interview.
Martin said T-Mobile’s cellular connections will be unharmed if the Internet traffic on neighboring channels is kept below a certain power level and other layers of protection are put into place.
T-Mobile, a unit of Deutsche Telekom AG ,, has been aggressively lobbying the FCC against the idea, saying Internet uploads and downloads next to its own spectrum would cause dropped calls and interfere with weak T-Mobile cell signals.
US telecoms giant T-Mobile submitted test results claiming that using AWS-3 for wireless Internet use would interfere with mobile devices operating in the adjacent 2110-2155 MHz band known as AWS-1.
T-Mobile has also said it would bid on the spectrum in question if the free Internet condition isn’t a part of the auction. T-Mobile is currently launching its own low-cost wireless Internet service that would compete directly with a free Internet option.
Martin said he wants to begin the auctioning process “as soon as possible,” but couldn’t state when the FCC would vote on an item detailing the rules for the sale.
The FCC decided to auction the spectrum off to a company that would dedicate some of the spectrum to free wireless. The winner must reach half the US population in four years and 95% by 2018.
T-Mobile claims the new service would interfere with abutting spectrum it bought last year for $4 billion for a 3G network. If the FCC goes forward with its free Internet idea, T-Mobile has hinted it would sue. In a presentation to FCC officials earlier this week, T-Mobile executives noted that after their company paid billions to operate in its spectrum swath, the FCC has an “enforceable contract” with the licensees to ensure minimal interference.
M2Z originally proposed the FCC to give it a national 25 megahertz block of airwaves to build a national wireless Internet network. The start-up said it could pay for the build-out via advertising and a subscription based model plan for consumers willing to pay more for faster service.
Google has proposed similar effort to allow greater access of web to the local community through wifi and ability to us advertising supported content to subsidize the cost. Google was working to team up with the city of San Francisco to blanket the city with free broadband. The San Francisco citywide proposal failed to materialize.
The FCC decided against giving away free spectrum and plans to auction the spectrum in a bidding process that will also require winning bid to make spectrum available to the population.
M2Z Networks Inc., a startup that wants to use the unused airwaves for nationwide free Internet service, says that with reasonable standards, interference on T-Mobile’s network would be so minimal it wouldn’t be noticed.
M2Z Networks Inc. applied to the FCC, the US regulatory body, in May 2006 to lease the AWS-3 spectrum to build a free nationwide wireless broadband network. The proposed band is 2155-2175 MHz, or AWS-3, for Advanced Wireless Service.
M2Z pledged to ensure broadband coverage for 95 percent of the population within 10 years.
M2Z is founded by Milo Medin (former CTO of @home) and CEO John Muleta former FCC wireless bureau chief. M2Z is financially backed by venture capitalists KPCB, Redpoint, and Charles River.
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Categories : WirelessTags : FCC, Free Wireless Web, Google, Kevin Martin, KPCB, M2Z Networks, Milo Medin, T-Mobile, wifi, WiMax