Wireless Week and WiFi Planet report that former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt told told the Senate Commerce Committee Wednesday, that wireless broadband is currently allocated to the wrong spectrum and the result is hampering the growth of the technology.

Hundt said wireless broadband should be put in the same spectrum swath used by analog UHF stations, which is being vacated by broadcasters converting to digital television signals.

“Wireless broadband is being designed where the radio frequencies are very, very high and, as a result, the radio waves can not penetrate buildings,” Hundt told the Senate Commerce Committee Wednesday, as lawmakers look at a possible overhaul of telecom legislation.

“Waves at lower frequencies are longer in length. Longer wave lengths hold their energy over longer distances. They can travel miles from a tower and find their way inside living rooms.”

Congress has shown an increasing interest in reforming the 1996 Telecommunications Act as the United States struggles to rollout broadband across the country. The U.S. ranks 11th worldwide in broadband deployment behind South Korea, Hong Kong, Canada, Taiwan, Denmark, Belgium, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Japan and Sweden.

In 1997, Congress directed the FCC to allocate 24 MHz of the 700 MHz band for public safety communications and to allocate another 36 MHz of the band for commercial use to be assigned through spectrum auctions.

According to WiFi Planet, Hundt told the senators;

“We can lower the costs of wireless broadband in one fell swoop by 50 percent within months, if this committee will say to the whole wireless broadband industry we need to be designing new spectrum for today’s analog UHF channels.”

“In order to facilitate wireless broadband in this spectrum, Congress could amend this 1997 law to allocate 30 MHz of this commercial spectrum for unlicensed services that would not be subject to an auction,” Hundt said, adding that the spectrum transformation would result in “billions of dollars of extra growth and hundreds of thousands, if not ultimately millions, of new jobs, provided it was done quickly.”

Hundt described advanced wireless technology as a “chipset about as big as my thumbnail that will send out a radio signal to a box about the size of a cheeseburger and sits on a windowsill.” “If you have the right radio frequencies you don’t need as many boxes and you can design it better,” Hundt said.

Hundt urged both Congress and the FCC to “push the recalcitrant and incentivize the willing participants” in any telecom reform.

“The current chapter in this ongoing story of facilitating the creative innovation of capitalism will be written if Congress and the FCC can find ways to let businesses use the best spectrum physics, not for UHF television, but rather for wireless broadband.”

President Bush wants 90 Mhz for broadband wireless but will likely get it from bands higher then the 2.4 GHz “junk band”.

Vyyo has launched its licensed-band 700 MHz broadband wireless access system, which is available for operation in markets worldwide. Polar Communications, provides telecom services to more than 12,000 subscribers in North Dakota and Minnesota, is the first operator to commercially deploy Vyyo s new 700 MHz system. Polar is using the 700 MHz system to deliver services to the city of Larimore, N.D., which has dense foliage. Utilizing the 700 MHz band enables better penetration through such obstacles as foliage, as well as better indoor penetration, according to Stewart Kantor, Vyyo s business manager.

The FCC recently auctioned off the 700 Mhz C channel (Channels 54 and 59) in the 700 MHz band, allowing licensed broadband wireless operations in that band. Previously, the 700 MHz band was reserved for UHF television broadcasts. UHF broadcasters are supposed to vacate the 700 MHz band by 2006. That band can provide 28 Mbps in the downlink, with near plug-and-play operation within a five-mile radius of a tower.

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Posted by Sam Churchill on Thursday, April 29th, 2004 at 1:50 am.