[LINK] wireless improvements in the US - 4G

[Richard Chirgwin]

Jan Whitaker wrote:
> [what sort of data speeds could this provide on the lower 
> frequencies? could it rectify some of the concerns re the NBN for 
> rural services?]

Jan,

It depends how "wide" a channel may be. Thumbnail: if you run narrow channels,
you get lower speed but more subscribers. Wide channels, higher speed, fewer subs.

To tie this to something familiar: 802.11g uses (I think) 20 MHz channels to get
 throughput of 19 Mbps. But you can only get five 20 MHz channels in a 100 MHz
slice of spectrum (ie, from 600 MHz to 700 MHz).

RC


> 
> Hugh Pickens writes "A Pew study last year found that only 38 percent 
> of rural American homes have access to broadband Internet, compared 
> to 57 percent in cities and 60 percent in the suburbs. All that could 
> be about to change with the announcement that Verizon plans to start 
> introducing a new wireless network in the 700 MHz spectrum in 2010. 
> 'The licenses we bought in the 700MHz auction cover the whole US,' 
> says Tony Melone, a Verizon Wireless VP. 'And we plan to roll out LTE 
> [high-speed mobile service] throughout the entire country, including 
> places where we don't offer our [current] cell phone service today.' 
> Because the [700 MHz] spectrum is in a lower frequency, it can 
> transmit signals over longer distances and penetrate through 
> obstacles, and because the signals travel longer distances, Verizon 
> can deploy fewer cell towers than if it used spectrum from a higher 
> frequency band, which means it can provide coverage at a lower cost. 
> President Obama's administration is well aware of the high-speed 
> Internet divide that exists today, and as part of the overall 
> economic stimulus package passed by Congress, the government is 
> allocating $7.2 billion for projects that bring broadband Internet 
> access to rural towns and communities."
> 
> http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/03/1926206&from=rss
> 
> 
> Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
> jwhit at janwhitaker.com
> blog: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/
> business: http://www.janwhitaker.com
> 
> Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or 
> sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.
> ~Madeline L'Engle, writer
> 
> _ __________________ _
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Link mailing list
> Link at mailman.anu.edu.au
> http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
>