Net Neutrality and RE: FCC's McDowell

[Yournet@hotmail.com]

Spectrum regulation is about the only thing that is limited... by dead-ended 
analog thinking.  Many people involved with the 'spatial revolution' 
including Gordy Moore of Arraycomm, Andrew Viterbi, (Viterbi space-time 
coding) now a Senior Fellow at Intel, think that wireless BB is on a similar 
path of increasing bandwidth as Moore's law for semiconductors.

Wireless is now using digital processing methods, multi-path antenna 
processing, and is starting to use adaptive antenna systems for beam 
steering including migration to small base stations and CPE/SUs.  Beam 
forming plus MIMO will appear in laptops, 'ultra portable' and other devices 
which incorporate arrays of antennas needed to differentiate signals.  The 
evolving capabilities are matched up with still antiquated regulations. 
Given that spectrum from 500 MHz to 6 GHz within the most densely populated 
cities recently surveyed is used only about 7% on a duty cycle basis, and 
much less in rural areas, there is a lot of spectrum to play with using 
digital signaling methods and, eventually, smart/adaptive radio techniques. 
The theoretical gains are usually studied on a cell typology or link 
performance basis that uses analysis methods from the cellular industry. 
But these techniques combined with the 'architectural evolution' of 
wireless.. using a diverse combination of conventional sectorization and 
smart antenna arrays at the base stations, plus grids, tiered, structured 
MESH, ad-hoc MESH, and perhaps even 'viral self-forming' MESH that includes 
user devices.. all this creates an environment for reusing spectrum many 
times over.  This results in an 'new dimension' of wireless spectrum use 
that dramatically increases effective en-to-end efficiency.  There are more 
parts to the 'architectural evolution' of wireless that includes pushing 
content closer to the user and localized/off back-haul routing.  This is 
similar to what has been hoped to be achieved for community networks: 
localized communications and sharing of resources.  It is becoming necessary 
for commerical networks because patterns of use are dramatically shifting to 
and between users.

This is, of course, a broad development occurring in WiFi, cellular WCDMA 
and WiMAX systems.  But the most active development is now occurring within 
WiMAX SOFDMA systems.  I am doing an extensive study of the literally 
thousands of patents that apply to WiMAX and LTE (those wide area systems 
that will use OFDMA plus MIMO and AAS.  LTE looks likely to use OFDMA on the 
down-link and SC-OFDM on the up-link to achieve longer range and lower power 
compared to symmetrical use of MIMO/AAS-OFDMA).  The number of patents being 
applied for or granted over the past three years has accelerated to hundreds 
per month.  Up to about three years ago there were well less one hundred per 
year.   I've also search for CDMA/WCDMA MIMO related patents & aps to find 
far lower level of filings and grants.  This fits with our surveys of 
companies in the industry... I trust what the trends in the patents say 
because this shows where engineers are spending their time and companies are 
spending their R&D dollars.

Some of the more interesting developments, imo, is in networked 
MIMO/AAS-OFDMA networking and IC related developments.  I see this in the 
patents and also development stage and a couple entrenched chip companies 
who are working on new designs that I am privy to.  This is also seen in the 
802.16j MMR, mobile multi-hop relay, developments.  There is still 
development work & discussion going on about how to structure various levels 
of control of these networks: how much autonomy to give to fempto, pico, 
micro, mini larger base stations.  The terms being used by MMR group are 
different than those used by chip suppliers... they say the chips will 
conform to 802.16j, however it turns out, but also be compatible with 
networking and interface standards.

One company is working on WiMAX baseband chips with networking capability 
that will start out going beyond WiMAX wave 2 MIMO/AAS capabilities: they 
will use six antennas or array elements grouped in threes to do beam forming 
with 2X2 MIMO.  That is just one application.  The neat thing about WiMAX is 
that the power level can be much higher and when combined with MIMO-AAS and 
scalable modulation (128-2048 FFT, >QPSK) can be made very robust.



> This reminds me of the telcos' hand-wringing over dial-up access to the
> Inet, when they said that their system had been designed to handle calls
> that might average 5 minutes a pop, notwithstanding the socializing by
> teenagers at pre-driver's license age, and now they were having people
> camping on their circuits for hours at a time.  Well, the ISP's might put
> time-outs on your connection and forbid, as much as they could identify
> them, keep-alive signals, but that all turned out to be a non-issue,
> overtaken by events, didn't it.
>
> As for "finite bandwidth", I suggest that, in the scheme of things and in
> view of the experimental verification of Moore's Law to date, bandwidth 
> IS,
> for all practical purposes, infinite (yes, I know that Moore's Law 
> addresses
> transistor density, so I'm suggesting a corollary that, at least in
> principle, seems pretty likely to hold, as we have gone from 300 Baud to
> 3,000,000 bps -- 10e4 improvement -- at home in about 20 years, and are
> looking at at least one more order in magnitude in the next 10).
>
> In fact, Seattle's recent Broadband Telecommunications Taskforce reported
> that the only way to go in Seattle was FTTH at 25 Mbps SYMMETRICAL, just 
> for
> openers.  They also asserted that adding new hardware to the ends of the
> fiber would essentially provide escalation of bandwidth to address future
> demand -- as the technology and cost of such improved systems becomes
> economically feasible.  Yes, I'm sure that even single-mode fiber with FDM
> has a limit somewhere; but then there's all of that "dark fiber" I hear
> about that's in place already -- Lord knows, we in Qwest land are still
> paying for it's creation by Quest, which is why Qwest is not doing a FIOS 
> or
> Lightspeed rollout already.
>
> How about the $45+ reaming by Comcast we take each month for maybe a
> realistic average of 2 Mbps down, and virtually nothing up, sharing our 
> loop
> with 300 of our "closest friends"; and I've been told, using only one
> channel's worth of bandwidth on a cable that already carries several 
> hundred
> channels, and will gain 2x to 5x the channel capacity when all TV becomes
> digital.
>
> Of course, wireless has more stringent limits, the electromagnetic 
> frequency
> spectrum being what it is, but even the measly systems that the cell
> providers offer have progressed from compressed audio to images to now
> video -- and the providers are encouraging one to use it, at great profit 
> to
> them all.  But IMHO, wireless is always going to be a niche player, having
> some real benefits in performing uniquely ubiquitous connectivity; but
> programs that presume to install these systems as the solution to all
> broadband demands are just the result of politicians who wouldn't know an
> Ethernet cable if it bit them in the ass doing another grandstand play.
>
> Internet activity has gone from text to images (marginally practical at 
> best
> with dial-up) and now to audio and video as the normal mode of operation.
> It's really annoying when I'm online late at night and some site comes up
> with a loud video -- usually an ad -- spontaneously provided, which evokes
> some verbal hostility from the bedroom.  But I assert that this is the 
> world
> of the future, and everyone is going to be using the Inet that way, so get
> over it -- I'll be wearing headphones, just in case.
>
> One indication that quite surprised me that this trend is well-appreciated
> is that the requirement for SYMMETRICAL bandwidth is the conclusion that
> many study projects are reaching, which suggests strongly that the 
> planners
> assume that a whole lot of us are going to become independent video
> producers, not just on YouTube, but on our own servers (as M$ seems to be 
> in
> process of enabling for the masses).
>
> No one asked for more money to transmit images rather than text, so why
> discriminate when the images come to life?  And the suggestion that we are
> getting this for nothing is really offensive, given the egregious amount
> that we all pay for the connection already.  And some ISPs already charge 
> by
> the GB, and offer fast connections cheap just to encourage you to run up 
> the
> GB total (cf. Northwest Net for one).
>
> The network providers should adhere to the principles of the common 
> carrier,
> just as has served the POTS people well for so long.  The real problem is
> network providers who are also content providers and who are not above
> sabotaging their competition.  Just as the music industry is finding, this
> is a new era with new rules -- stop trying to maintain the untenable and 
> get
> with the program.  There is money to be made and neither music recording 
> nor
> video over the net is going away, though the birth process of the new era
> certainly is painful -- and unnecessarily so to a great extent.
>
> Ken Meyer
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
>
> From: talk-bounces at seattlewireless.net
> [mailto:talk-bounces at seattlewireless.net]
> On Behalf Of Yournet at hotmail.com
> Sent: Friday, December 29, 2006 4:55 PM
> To: SeattleWireless Talk List
>
> Subject: Re: Net Neutrality and RE: FCC's McDowell
>
> Right.
>
> Network neutrality does not mean that network providers can't set up 'fair
> and non-discriminatory' use policies.  I haven't studied this issue in 
> much
> detail but have heard the carriers side of the issue: they have paid for
> spectrum or to build out cable and other broadband  networks and now see
> their business models shifting increasingly to services over flat rate
> access plans.
>
> For example, IPTV, music download services, file sharing can be offered on
> the Internet which eats up bandwidth
> but for which they get no direct revenue.  All service is built out based 
> on
> expected prime hour traffic patterns.  The IPTV and file sharing services
> are using 10X+ the bandwidth of typical Internet website traffic. 
> YouTube,
> which has about 40% of the IPTV open server hosting traffic, is growing at
> the rate of doubling traffic every 3-4 months, now at a rate of adding 25
> Gbps of capacity.  That is huge capacity and is about to be repeated 
> across
> services from Microsoft, eBay, Yahoo! and others.
>
> This marks just the tip of the iceberg for new services including 
> 'webized'
> collaborative office suites, localized video advertising and location
> mapping services.
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
>
> From: "Tyler van Houwelingen" <tyler at azulstar.com>
> To: "'SeattleWireless Talk List'" <talk at seattlewireless.net>
> Sent: Friday, December 29, 2006 6:01 AM
>
> Subject: Net Neutrality and RE: FCC's McDowell
>
>> Quite a stand up guy, that is very good to see on either side.
>>
>> The issue at its heart is really about network neutrality.  I got to tell
>> you, from the point of view of a network owner, network neutrality is
>> pretty
>> scary.  Because you do not have infinite bandwidth, you really need to be
>> careful, especially with P2P apps.  Providers moving around HD videos can
>> use up YOUR entire network very fast.  It can cause other critical apps 
>> to
>> stop working.  If there is not an economic incentive to segment traffic
>> according to economic priority, you will always have problems.
>>
>> There must be at least some money to be made by owning a network.  Even 
>> if
>> the networks are NOT FOR PROFIT, they still need to be able to support
>> themselves financially.   If not, muni Wi-Fi and WiMAX networks will hot
>> be built or are destined to fail.    You need an incentive to increase
> capacity
>> or overlay networks and break the duopoly.
>>
>> Shouldn't net neutrality also apply to mobile providers such as Sprint?
>> How the heck to they do ANY of there premium services if it MUST be wide
> open?
>>
>> ty
>>
>>
>>
>> Tyler van Houwelingen
>> Founder and CEO
>> Azulstar, Inc.
>> 1-877-AZULSTAR (main)
>> 1-616-842-1104 (fax)
>> www.azulstar.com
>
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