
Government auction of wireless airwaves will shape the future of the Internet - jgrahamc
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/04/13/the-government-just-wrapped-a-major-auction-thatll-shape-the-future-of-the-internet/
======
TaylorAlexander
It's so upsetting to me that they don't make bands like this available for
general public use. If we had clearly defined rules about interoperability we
could reserve a band for essentially free low bandwidth cell phone usage, at
least for text and basic data.

I've imagined that the towers could be open hardware that sell minutes on the
fly for bitcoin transferred by the user.

But no, instead these corporations pay billions with the expectation that
they'll recover that and much more from us who have no free option for mobile
wireless.

It's really frustrating to me.

~~~
PaulHoule
Actually a few years back there was this idea called "White Spaces" that was
exactly that... If the TV airwaves were not in use in your area, you could use
them for other purposes.

Here's what happened.

Out on the west coast, particularly in Los Angeles, there are no white spaces.
In LA you can often get nearly 100 channels with just an indoor antenna. It is
unlike any other TV market in the U.S.

Well because there were not white spaces there, they managed to delay the
introduction of "White Space" hardware and also the spectrum database needed
to support this service.

Then, of course, the cell phone companies came in to buy up a lot of spectrum.
Because things are changing, the white space market got stunted. Now that the
cell phone companies own the spectrum, there are no white spaces, or at least,
much less of them than they used to be.

It's a generally forgotten story that the spectrum situation on the west coast
is entirely different from the rest of the country because of the "ring of
fire" topography that focuses settlement along the coast.

Out in the Northeast we find that the population is dispersed enough that
there are not many transmitters near most sites, but that cities are close
enough that there are not many transmitters near most cities. For instance, in
Boston you have to worry about interference with Hartford and Portland, ME.

Don't get me started about 900 MHz, which is a non-starter because of the
concentration of the electronics industry in Palo Alto, where 900 MHz is
crammed with half-baked gadgets made by Stanford kids.

~~~
rayiner
That's one part of the problem. The other part of the problem is that
commercial deployment of white spaces and similar technology has been held to
a pretty much impossible standard:
[https://www.techworld.com.au/article/261483/google_page_whit...](https://www.techworld.com.au/article/261483/google_page_white_spaces_test_unfair).

The idea is to take advantage of unused spectrum without ever bothering
incumbent users. In many cases that's simply impossible:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_node_problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_node_problem).

The problem becomes much more tractable when you ditch the requirement to
protect legacy transmitters and receivers in the same band. Dynamic spectrum
access technology existing today could work pretty well if you gave it a big
chunk of its own spectrum, and used those technologies to mediate contention
among themselves.

When the FCC can get tens of billions of dollars auctioning spectrum, making
the case for that becomes difficult.

------
sandworm101
Not "the internet". This is about _mobile_ and then only in the US. That is
nowhere near the internet as an entity. And these lower frequencies have
limits. There is only so much bandwidth they can now or ever carry. They
cannot ever be the backbone for providing serious bandwidth to a large
population (without lots of low-power towers but then you would use higher
frequencies anyway.) Some people now without internet might in a decade be
connected but this auction has no serious impact on the vast magority of
users.

~~~
swiley
This is exactly how most people in rural areas connect to the internet /now/.
The alternatives are dialup and satilite which are both worse.

------
RichardHeart
"Epstein went on to add that the auction did what it was supposed to do: Find
a meeting point between supply and demand for an increasingly sought-after
physical resource."

All it did was assign a monopoly to a company that must increase the screwing
the customers get, to make back the money they just gave the government. Thus
in effect, customers money in the future is being handed to the government
today. Whoever can screw the customers the hardest can pay the government the
most for the privilege of doing so.

Just like for profit prisons, this could work great, IF you included some
metrics for the prisoners, or in this case, the customers. If the customers
had some interest or say in this at all. Since the public/customers are the
parties who matter in the sale of public properties, they should get more say
than "well, just don't buy it."

Not buying it is getting to cast a vote after the polls have closed, and it
doesn't really get counted when it needs to.

------
bcoates

      The first channels to relocate will not do so for another
      18 months, according to the FCC. And TV stations that are
      changing channels or will go off the air will be expected
      to notify their viewers ahead of time with on-screen
      banners and other guides.
    

I thought digital over the air TV had some sort of channel-mapping that
decoupled broadcast frequency from the programming channels the viewer sees,
and the relationship between the two post-transition was just a historical
artifact. (hence the decimal fraction broadcast channels and occasional need
to convince your DTV/adapter to re-scan for metadata) Can't these moving
stations just change their frequency and keep their numbers?

~~~
toast0
They'll keep their virtual channel, but viewers will need to do a new channel
scan, so if you want to keep your viewers, you probably want to ask them to do
it enough times that when the current frequency stops working they'll remember
to do the scan.

------
upofadown
>... an unprecedented opportunity to acquire enormous amounts of high-value,
“beachfront” airwaves.

I don't think this is really considered true anymore. This auction only
generated something like 80 MHz due to the low interest. T-mobile got the
biggest chunk, but that is only enough to provide a total of a gigabit of
downlink per cell site. Unfortunately 600 MHz frequencies tend to propagate
over longer distances so it is harder to have a lot of closely spaces access
points. The real value is in densely wooded rural areas where there are not a
lot of subscribers. Few subscribers means little revenue.

The current hotness seems to be millimetre waves. That is where the
interesting 5G development is happening. In the end there is simply not very
much spectrum available below 1 GHz and they are not making any more of it.

------
payne92
Spectrum auctioning is really bad policy.

Spectrum is like the road network. Why would we sell it to the highest bidder
for them to sell it back to us?

Instead, spectrum should be public and free, like roads, for those that follow
the usage rules.

~~~
malchow
Spectrum isn't free because it isn't free.

That isn't a tautology, it's a statement of fact: spectrum has a dollar value.
In nature. In nature it's got a price. Because men will trade, or pay, or war
for it.

Therefore, to allocate it efficiently, we should allow it to trade at that
value. This is how that spectrum makes the most number of people happy.

That may sound like right-wing pablum, but it's a subject that has been well
trod by great thinkers for a very, very long time. [1]

[1] Coase, to mention just one

~~~
steinystein
Roads aren't free because they aren't free. That isn't a tautology, it's a
statement of fact: Roads have a dollar value. In nature. In nature it's got a
price. Because men will trade, or pay, or war for it. Therefore, to allocate
it efficiently, we should allow it to trade at that value. This is how roads
make the most number of people happy. That may sound like right-wing pablum,
but it's a subject that has been well trod by great thinkers for a very, very
long time. [1] [1] Coase, to mention just one

~~~
bdonlan
This is increasingly being done with congestion charges and time-dependent
road or bridge tolls, but it still remains difficult, from a practical
perspective, to maintain a continuous auction of road capacity.

Notably, wireless deployments differ from road use in that using a wireless
spectrum assignment requires significant deployment time and capital
investment, meaning when a frequency range is assigned it's reasonable to
expect and allow a single entity to control that range for an extended period.
With roads, on the other hand, a single use can be as short as a few minutes,
meaning a similar auction would need to re-occur hundreds or thousands of
times a day.

Further, if wireless spectrum ranges are not pre-assigned, it becomes quite
difficult for multiple entities trying to use the same range to coordinate to
avoid interference that would render the range useless to both. Roads, on the
other hand, can be reasonably shared by multiple users without any
coordination ahead of time.

Because of these practical difficulties, and the lack of an inherent need for
usage assignments, most roads are not tolled or auctioned, and the result is
heavy congestion in highly-sought-after routes at peak times.

~~~
olkid
While I agree with the substance of your comment, let us be clear about the
difference between deployment and usage.

Entities investing in roadway leases and toll roads align closer to wireless
deployments, IMHO.

[http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-07-15-u.s.-h...](http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-07-15-u.s.-highways_x.htm)

Wouldn't driving on a road for a few minutes correlate closer to making a
phone call or sending a text?

(I can't believe I am perpetuating this analogy :P)

------
wyldfire
Note that this is in the 600MHz band, in the US only, and will require new
frontends and related changes in order for phones to take advantage of this
spectrum.

I kinda doubt it will "shape the future of the Internet" though.

~~~
jonwachob91
It's making way for 5G service on mobile devices... 4G dragged the internet
from our desktops to our phones, forcing business models around the world to
change. 5G is sure to have a major impact.

------
Severian
There was also 12Mhz of unlicensed spectrum on the old uhf channel 37 guard
bands being opened up as well [1]. It's less than the 24-30 MHz advocated for
users of 802.11af though. So that's a plus for IoT I guess.

Overall this is a good thing. Reshaping the future of the Internet might be
hyperbole though.

EDIT: I overlooked the byline, and it appears this article is from 2014. I'm
not sure if this is the same bands discussed as those from the FCC Public
Notice here [2].

[1] [http://www.telecompetitor.com/wheeler-sees-limited-
unlicense...](http://www.telecompetitor.com/wheeler-sees-limited-unlicensed-
spectrum-600-mhz-band/)

[2]
[http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2017...](http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2017/db0413/DA-17-314A1.pdf)

------
RichardHeart
Germany has terrible internet access because the carriers there overpaid for
the rights. The winner should be who can provide a good end service the
cheapest, not who will provide the end service at the highest price.

~~~
sitkack
The current system is a reverse-disincentive to screw the customer.

------
Splendor
In the case of the current headline "Government" obviously means "US
Government".

~~~
mod
If it's obvious, then what purpose does your comment serve?

------
chillydawg
Anyone know what the terms of the deal are WRT length of lease, or are these
perpetual?

------
calebm
Could we crowdsource the purchasing of some of this spectrum for collective
use?

------
MR4D
I wonder at what point it will be cheaper to build more cell towers than to
buy more spectrum.

------
jMyles
I, for one, don't believe that the state has the moral authority to "auction"
the airwaves.

What makes 600mhz constitutionally distinct from 400hz? If the answer is
"nothing," then it seems that the state can auction the air surrounding my
vocal chords, deciding which vibrations are ad are not permissible.

If free speech is to mean anything in the information age, it must apply
across a broad, useful, reasonable spectrum just as much as the tiny slivers
which happen to be visible or audible to human eyes and ears.

~~~
clarkmoody
You'll find that HN has bipolar disorder when it comes to libertarian
positions:

Upvotes for:

\+ Privacy, opposing mass-surveillance

\+ Opposing cronyism

Downvotes for:

\+ Free markets in education, healthcare, housing

\+ Opposing "common sense safety" regulations

You would think that such an intellectual crowd would have more tolerance and
curiosity for new ideas. But you would be wrong.

~~~
dragonwriter
That's not bipolar disorder; if it was an individual, it would just be having
an ideology that doesn't neatly align for or against a particular common
archetype.

In the case of HN, it's both not particularly accurate and, to the extent it
is at all accurate, is a mixture of some people not aligning with popular
archetypes and people that do align with both libertarian and anti-libertarian
archetypes being present in significant numbers in the HN community.

