Date: Wed, 6 May 1998 11:34:07 -0700 (PDT) From: Michael Dillon <michael@memra.com> To: inet-access@earth.com Cc: linuxisp@friendly.jeffnet.org, freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Better keep on top of these wireless developments! Message-ID: <Pine.BSI.3.93.980506113259.4620P-100000@sidhe.memra.com>
next in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 6 May 1998 12:37:07 -0400 From: Gordon Cook <cook@cookreport.com> To: Multiple recipients of list <com-priv@lists.psi.com> Subject: Dave Hughes report on just completed spread spectrum wireless >Date: Wed, 6 May 1998 09:34:46 -0600 (MDT) >From: Dave Hughes <dave@oldcolo.com> >To: Gordon Cook <cook@cookreport.com> >Subject: Will you post? >MIME-Version: 1.0 > >Will you post this to the compriv and telecom reg sites? > >Dave Hughes >dave@oldcolo.com > > Well, the NSF-GWU sponsored Emerging Wireless Conference is over. >Two intense days - nearly 50 speakers and panelists wrestling with >wireless, satellite technologies, public policies, and distance learning >with them. It is the first such conference that brought satellite gurus >together with the advanced non-commercial-service wireless experts and >those together with FCC, NTIA, and White House staffers. > > Somewhat to my suprise, there was unanimous agreement by those >attendees who stuck it to the end, to do it again next year. > > While not particularly intended the most eye-opening sessions were >either about (1) little known but spectacular applications of wireless to >the most difficult regions of America (2) equally little known >technological developments and analysis that challenges the >telephone-company assumptions upon which all public policy is based and >(3) the almost Alice in Wonderland atmosphere that was created when >FCC and NTIA panelists mixed with practioners of the 'emerging wireless' >arts. > > Many attendees became so frustrated with the nearly irrelevant - >to the real telecommunications world they live in - presentations and >answers to questions by FCC and NTIA staffers - at the end they seriously >suggested we drop all Federal agency persons from a future conference. >(not knowing that it is the policies of these agencies, or the catch-22 >laws, that is the greatest obstacle to the flowering of these new and >incredibly cost effect technologies. And that one purpose of the >conference was to educate the working staffs of those agencies.) > > One classic exchange came when, after three staffers from the FCC >and the School Libraries Corporation (SLC) had made their presentation on >how the Universal Service Fund worked, and what was eligible and what was >not, and Mike Willett, one of the most sought-after integrators and >installers of wireless networks for schools described the project he is >working on right now. The State of Colorado had only $2 million to >allocate to link up 70 schools in the south-east farm country corner of >Colorado, including reliable voice telephone service in tiny towns who >don't have it now to decent speed connections to the Internet. The >consortium of towns and school districts first get bids from telephone >companies to do the job. Then they brought in Mike, who bid the entire >project, using modern microwave systems, and no-licence wireless, and >associated mux and other terminating equipment, as a private, regional >telephone and data network. He showed he could do it for the $2 million >available, with minimum data service of T-1 speed to all schools, with NO >recurring monthly costs, except incidental maintainance. On the other >hand the telephone companies said they could *not* reach all the schools, >but could build to most of them, and a backbone. Which would cost >$500,000 a MONTH. > >But this was the catch-22. The Universal Service Fund - designed and >intended by Congress to connect up ALL US public schools and libraries by >subsidies with the principles of (a) universality (2) technology neutral >and (c) competitive - CANNOT be applied for by the schools to help pay for >advanced and total solution, but WOULD pay for the incredibly costly >partial telco 'solution' - which, however, would have to be applied for >every single year. Risking the eventual cut off of the USF program. > >The FCC staffers simply had no answers to that spectacular, real world of >school connectivity riddle. Nor could they even answer the question as to >whether the PROBLEM was inside the FCC's interpretation of the law, or the >law itself! > >As they did not (they were gone by this time) for an incredible story at >lunch brought 5,700 miles by Red Boucher, ex-lt. governor of Alaska who >owns Alaska Wireless and has been, for years, trying to help connect up, >the schools, local government, one-person health clinics, businesses the >325 remote severe-weather native villages (with like 100-500 populations) >to the rest of the world. With reliable voice and data services. (in >places like Tooksook Bay where the most progressive telecommunicator pays >over $7,200 a year for a dial-up AOL connection WHEN he can get dial tone >from the shitty satellite delivered telephone company (who is OPPOSING the >use of a $700,000 TIAP grant for extending data services to the schools of >the 40 villages in one region - on the ground that the laws and FCC rules >make it illegal to offer competing services with Federal funds (not USF >funds) at lower costs where there is 'already' service! > >While Red's power point luncheon speaker presentation was later, the >wireless divisions staffers from NTIA were still on the panel, when Red >summarized THAT catch-22 in an audience microphone question for them, for >which they had NO answer, and could only 'invite' him to come into >Commerce and talk to them. Which he will do, enroute, however to Senator's >Stevens (R-AK) offices to ask his close friend Ted to intervene in >the bull**** that, while proclaiming Administration support and programs >to connect up all schools, libraries and health services, in fact are not >only irrelevant (USF) or obstructionist (TIIAP by Telcos) > >Red showed the incredible deployment under winter conditions using >commercial no-licence wireless devices hooked to a $3,000 a month >satellite service, to bring to pop 80 Tooksook Bay, 56kbps Internet >service to PCs in the school buildings, the health clinic, the community >building AND, in a region where the weather gets so severe, that >the students and teachers cannot go to 'school' but must study from >home for days on end when the wind chill is -75 and a 'light snow' >covers the only automobile in village - to three homes of teachers, >administrators, and students. At 2 mbps locally, with 100% reliablity >through last winter. NONE of which is eligible for USF funding, there >or in any of the other 324 like villages, for which a technical, >economic, solution is at hand. For villages on subsistance economy >with equivalent of 5-7,000 dollars a year total incomes. > >Then after pretty senior FCC official made the keynote address in which, >knowing he was addressing those who advocate, manufacture, install and use >no-licence advanced wireless systems stressed the PROBLEM of no-licence of >the 'tragedy of the commons' (the theory that when too many radios >operate in the same shared spectrum space, they all degrade to >uselessness), young Tim Shepard made a brilliant presentation from his MIT >Doctoral thesis on 'dense spread spectrum networks' (after that same >senior official who had stressed the 'limitations' of radio was gone, of >course) backed up by advanced mathmatical analyses how BILLIONS of radios >can co-exist in the same electromagnetic space in a city, for example, >exchange hundreds of megabits per second without a problem - totally >wiping out the assumptions upon which the 'tragedy of the commons' >inspired FCC spectrum policies are based. > > Fortunately a not-quite-as senior FCC person was there, who, when invited >was only a technologist in the Policy branch, but is now going to replace >the head of the FCC' (OET) - office of engineering. Who could understand >the math, and the contention I have long held since reading Tim's >doctorate that, if the radio manufacturing FCC policies are made right >there IS NO 'tragedy of the commons' problem remaining. For the latest >computer chip technology can support the typs of networks Tim describes. >(of course Tim, like George Gilder, and while David Eisenberg - who made >his equally brilliant presentation at lunch of the 'Rise of the the Stupid >Networks' which wipes out the technological assumptions upon which the >telephone company empires are build - was there in the audience) says >'Drop all Regulations and let the technologist build the now-possible >radios!' He even demonstration that America could have 'free' telephone >voice service everywhere! Just the cost of the radios. Fat chance. The >obsolete telephone companies want to hold on to their threatend empires, >and will pour billions into preventing Tim Shepard's radios from ever >being made legal, even though 'only' the 270 million American consumers >and the radio manufacturing industry would benefit. > >And he was followed by another incredible presentaion by Shigeaky Hakasui, >of Harmonix corporation, who showed the theory and performance of >new wireless devices that operate in the millimeter range where only >molecules of Oxygen 'interfere' at OC-3 or 155Megabits a second!, which >costs MILLIONS to get from phone companies, wired! Very short range >but capable of being daisy chained in downtown areas. He showed >deployment in Tokyo in driving rainstorms (that harm laser light >networks, the only competitors). And the radio is the size of a >book! He had to, In Tokyo, show down the throughput, because the >end customers computers could not keep up with the OC-3 rate data >flow! While sitting in the audience was Eric Lee, CEO of Solectek, >whose latest spread spectrum radio you can buy right now for $9,000 >does 'only' 11mbps (above office LAN speed), for 25 miles! > >Then, though there were other great presentations, clashes, and >revelations, the high point for many was the Tour de Force presntation of >the 7th graders in tiny Lewistown, Montana who, while being seen by the >audience in the auditorium at George Washington University in DC, and the >senior Senator from Montana Max Baucus in the audience via satellite >television, fetched, wirelessly from Big Spring Creek in Montana >scientific data readings of the water quality coming into their classroom >computers operated by the students, which then appeared immediately via >the Internet on the big screen in DC - or any of the other 100 million web >users round the world. > >Which reading taken during class yesterday for the demonstration of the >potential of Field Science by Wireless is still on the Lewistown >web site, and you can fetch it too. > >Go to www.lewistown.net, the select 'Trailhead Project' and then on >the right column, 'Crick Data' and you will get the sensor readings >last taken (later they will set up automatic every hour readings) >whereever you are in the world. > >All this was video taped by the telvision studios of GWU, and I have the >tapes which unedited, are classic already. For after the Senator who >smoozed with the students after the incredible demonstration (at >ridiculously low cost - the TV satellite real time for the conference cost >us $6,000, while the 'field science by wireless' demo, which 100 million >people can get, cost about $.50 of connect costs.), then the audience got >into serious discussion with the 30+ 7th graders in Steve Paulson's >classroom over the environmental meaning of the raw data just fetched - >which they (the kids) *really* understood. And held their own with >question from National Science Foundation staffers. Next step? Submergible >tiny video camera in Big Spring Creek where the 'flow rate' you will see >(too fast after the stream was diverted) which can look the trout right in >the eye and see if they are in distress), fetching the data wirelessly >even when the temperature in Mid Montana is 40 below and 3 feet of snow >covers the stream and its ice. > >(I'll help them do that after I help a 'bat scientist' in Colorado count, >at night, in cave openings high in the Sangre de Cristo mountain range, >the number of bats flying out in a swarm, to see the effects of Fish and >Wildlife tyring to put grids on the cave opening, to keep people out. >All wirelessly connected of course.) > >Well, a lot of important things were cussed and discussed, seen and >sampled, right under the nose of the high mucky mucks of Washington DC, >and the national media types - who prefer to cover the latest change of >lipstick of Monica Lewinsky (we did have some key reporters there but of >course those who will report on pies in Bill Gates face just are too >preoccupied to cover things that will determine our communications future >in SPITE of government). > >So 100% of every word spoken in the 20 session hours of the 2 days, was >taped, and will be converted by Dragon Speaking Naturally software into >ASCII text, all of which will be, when done, put on our >wireless.oldcolo.com and the emerging wireless web site at GWU. > >And Greg Jones, President of TAPR, has offered to convert the tapes >also to realaudio and post them. > >So while you will never sample the intense, important-matters face to face >meetings that went on for a few hundred people on May 4th and 5th in >Washington, you will be able to read or hear everything they said, or >applauded. (well, almost everything. For many of those from 'government' >want to review what they said and have the privelege of editing it before >the whole world reads it) > >Dave Hughes >dave@oldcolo.com > >P.S. this is just my first-impressions report about the conference, before >I fly back to Colorado, where the future is in progress. > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-isp" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?Pine.BSI.3.93.980506113259.4620P-100000>