
A university IT guy plans to bid in two government airwave auctions - apress
http://fortune.com/2018/10/17/5g-spectrum-auction-bidders-fcc/
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erikig
I've always been curious about the mechanics of the FCC frequency spectrum
auctions. I know you can view the results on the FCC site below but I'm not
sure how to bid and view ongoing auctions: [https://www.fcc.gov/round-results-
auctions-held-july-2005-pr...](https://www.fcc.gov/round-results-auctions-
held-july-2005-present)

Anyone care to shed some light?

~~~
akira2501
> Anyone care to shed some light?

I'm honestly not trying to be flip, but as far as I've figured out the process
goes 1) Find a Law firm on K street that specializes in this. 2) Pay them.

~~~
rayiner
The K street law firm would pull up the FCC’s application instructions:
[https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-18-109A1.pdf](https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-18-109A1.pdf).

Yes, it’s complex. But you’re talking about auctioning an important public
resource for a highly complex purpose. It’s like a permit for drilling for oil
on government land. But the process is transparent.

~~~
erikig
It seems Beyerle (our university IT guy) was able to acquire a local license
for a seemingly fair $12k after getting a discount from the FCC no less.

"About 20 years ago, Beyerle was the winning bidder for one of 14 licenses in
a high frequency band for his local area, paying just under $12,000 (after
getting a 35% discount that the Federal Communications offered to smaller
bidders)."

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rayiner
Spectrum auctions have a really neat theoretical history. They're rooted in a
1959 paper by one of the pioneers of regulatory economics, Ronald Coase:
[https://www.chapman.edu/ESI/wp/Porter-Smith-Hazlett-
RadioSpe...](https://www.chapman.edu/ESI/wp/Porter-Smith-Hazlett-
RadioSpectrum.pdf). Today, spectrum auctions are the go-to spectrum allocation
tool in not just the U.S., but most of Europe as well.

~~~
gumby
Why auction perpetual rights and not lease them? You could also add a use-it-
or-lose-it to avoid dog-in-the-manger exclusion of rivals.

"selling" the rights seems short sighted, no matter how you set the price.

~~~
rayiner
Ideally, the government is not in the business of deciding what each block of
spectrum should be used for. What Coase proved is that if you auction the
spectrum and allow secondary-market transactions in the spectrum, then the
spectrum will end up in the highest value use-- _i.e._ the most economically
efficient use.[1] It doesn't matter "how you set the price" initially--
secondary market transactions will take care of reallocating the spectrum to
the best uses.

The FCC auctions don't implement fully Coasian auctions--they auction licenses
for a limited duration.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coase_theorem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coase_theorem)

~~~
xyzzy123
They might end up with their best use, but the public (well ok, government...)
would not be compensated for the full value of the public good, right?

e.g. If you initially sell for $1 to BobTelco then BobTelco (and any future
“owners”) eventually capture the real value of that spectrum.

~~~
godzillabrennus
The public can participate in the upside if they buy shares in the public
companies that operate their businesss on the spectrum.

~~~
bildung
But that isn't democratic anymore. Whereas one person equals one vote in the
case of the public receiving the profits, participation in the stock market
means more profit the more you wealth you already have (for buying shares).

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kruptos
I work in fixed wireless and I applaud this guys effort. In my area, Sprint
purchased all of our 2.5 Ghz licenses and we had to resort to using the new
CBRS band alongside unlicensed frequencies.

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xenadu02
Such high frequencies don't seem terribly useful. Aren't they essentially
line-of-sight?

I'd imagine that explains some of the lack of interest.

~~~
zamalek
Yep. WiGig is 60GHz and won't penetrate even a dry wall.

It would make more sense to allocate these frequencies for personal use
(although WiGig has that covered), or technologies similar to Artemis pCell[1]
(possibly vaporware at this point).

[1]: [https://www.artemis.com/pcell](https://www.artemis.com/pcell)

~~~
escherplex
Even 5GHz wireless phone base units won't penetrate a single layer of standard
concrete blocks, like you have in home construction in Florida. Yet 2.5Ghz
(WiFi etc.) or below (presumably part 15 at 100 mw) exhibits very little
apparent attenuation throughout or outside the house. You may want to check
out the _Atmospheric Absorption by Frequency_ chart at the RFCafe site:

[http://www.rfcafe.com/references/electrical/atm-
absorption.h...](http://www.rfcafe.com/references/electrical/atm-
absorption.htm)

~~~
0x8BADF00D
Would it be possible to quantum tunnel the wave packet through the solid wall
of concrete? (In this case it would be the wave produced by an RF device)

~~~
escherplex
To experiment with quantum tunneling you're dealing with phenomena manifesting
at the 1nm scale. One macro level theoretical app for quantum conductivity
seems to involve wave packets interacting with perfectly rectangular uniform
tightly-spaced cation-nuclei barriers which theoretically allows free electron
tunneling (IE, energy transmission). [1] Even if it works, seems like a lot of
trouble given that an array of duplex repeaters in the attic could solve the
problem.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_tunnelling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_tunnelling)

BTW Anki as in J-flashcards or as in Robotics?

~~~
0x8BADF00D
> One macro level theoretical app for quantum conductivity seems to involve
> wave packets interacting with perfectly rectangular uniform tightly-spaced
> cation-nuclei barriers which theoretically allows free electron tunneling
> (IE, energy transmission).

That’s an interesting use case for quantum tunneling. 1 nm scale is hard for
me to visualize mentally. When dealing with quantum mechanics, it seems that
one should not even attempt to use intuition. The way systems behave at
quantum scale is completely counterintuitive to me. Do you have any
recommendations for lectures or books?

> BTW Anki as in J-flashcards or as in Robotics?

Robotics.

~~~
escherplex
A) math refresher: Basic Training in Mathematics - Shankar

B) undergrad A-level text: Principles of Quantum Mechanics - Shankar

Happened to like his approach given that he's trying to convey information
with serviceable clarity given the subject matter without trying to impress
you with his divine intellect, like some of the pedagogues who are legends in
their own minds

C) Road to Reality - A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe - Penrose

Last one sounds pretentious but was a _magnum opus_. His postulates concerning
consciousness as a synthesis of quantum functioning were probably a bit much.

FWIW when studying Japanese back in 2002 I liked the Heisig method but wanted
animated stroke order displays for the characters. Jim Breen at Monash in
Australia had half the set in .gif but I had to coax Jack Halpern in Japan to
release the other half. Armed with the full set I was finally able to digitize
the _Remembering the Kanji_ in a useful .html form for personal use over the
space of a month (still keep it as a bookmarked local app in Firefox). When
done, apps like Anki (tr: _memorization_ ) J-flashcards started showing up,
duplicating the work. :)

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symlock
How long do air wave licenses last? Is there a substantial cost to renew or do
you simply have to re-bid?

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godelski
I honestly don't know why they are focusing on towers. I honestly believe we
need to skip that and use LEO sats. While more expensive upfront, it also
provides the ability to give global coverage. Some googling will show you
white papers with estimates of ~4500 nanosats (30x10x10cm), but you can reduce
the number of those by not rolling out usage worldwide and then scale up
(entering markets in other countries. Even ones that have NO internet access
currently).

You have low latency, high speeds, and don't need as many towers. But you HAVE
to be in LEO.

~~~
Rebelgecko
Because of how orbits work, I don't think you can really "focus" on an area by
reducing the number of satellites without a corresponding decrease in
availability and/or throughput. If you have a constellation that has
consistent coverage over the US, you're also going to have simultaneous
coverage over a good chunk of the rest of the world (although possibly not
anywhere more northern than the United States).

~~~
late2part
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostationary_orbit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostationary_orbit)

~~~
runlevel1
Geostationary orbits are very far away. The speed of light being what it is,
they aren't great at relaying realtime two-way communication.

~~~
godelski
GEO is also significantly further than LEO.

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pavel_lishin
> _How A University IT Guy Looks To Outmaneuver Verizon and AT &T In Upcoming
> Spectrum Auctions_

By buying spectrum in an area where they don't want to buy, it turns out.

Fun fact: I recently outmaneuvered AT&T in produce sales, by buying some
tomatoes they weren't shopping for at the grocery store.

(Also, given that Time Warner rebranded itself as "Spectrum", this is not what
I thought the article was about; can we lower case the headline except for
proper nouns?)

~~~
dang
We've replaced the title with more representative language from the article.

