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Federal Agency Turf War Over the 5.9 GHz Spectrum Could Hand 5G Victory to China

posted by martyb on Saturday August 24 2019, @07:32AM   Printer-friendly
from the "wave"-goodbye dept.

McGruber writes:

The organization Citizens Against Government Waste reports that federal government agencies are setting up roadblocks that could prevent the US from winning the global race to 5G.

[...] The Departments of Commerce, Defense, Education, and Transportation have filed objections to various proposals by the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) to repurpose federal spectrum for 5G, all of which will slow down progress and effectively give an advantage to other countries like China.

Not only have the four federal agencies lost sight of the importance of achieving 5G dominance, they are also choosing to ignore a 2012 law that authorized clearing certain portions of federal spectrum to allow the FCC to re-allocate and auction it for commercial use. Indeed, they are making some absurd claims about what will happen if they no longer have the use of some or all of their spectrum. The Department of Commerce has said that relinquishing spectrum used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric would cost lives because it would reduce the ability to forecast the weather; the Department of Defense is hiding behind national security and refusing to share anything; the Department of Education is claiming that children will lose access to educational spectrum while the current use of that spectrum is under the FCC's scrutiny for possible abuse; and the Department of Transportation (DOT) is also talking about how the use of spectrum under its control would save lives.

The DOT-held spectrum at 5.9 GHz was allocated to the department in 2009 to be used solely for dedicated short-range communications (DSRC), which has to date has been deployed in very few vehicles. Advocates for retaining the spectrum at DOT are now promoting a different technology that has yet to be adequately tested and may not be widely available for 8-10 years. At the same time, proven technology that increases passenger safety being used in vehicles today includes automatic emergency braking, backup cameras, blind-spot warning, electronic stability control, forward collision warning, lane departure warning and lane keeping systems, light detection and ranging (LIDAR), rear automatic braking, and rear cross-traffic alerts. These systems are radar or laser-based, meaning they have been developed without the need for the 5.9 GHz spectrum.

LINK: https://www.cagw.org/thewastewatcher/federal-spectrum-turf-war-could-hand-5g-victory-china

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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday August 24 2019, @09:55AM

    by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Saturday August 24 2019, @09:55AM (#884655) Journal

    https://spectrumfutures.org/what-will-5g-cost/ [spectrumfutures.org]

    Others might not agree. Indeed, some argue 5G costs [blogspot.com] might well be lower than 4G, or might come at a slight premium. There are many reasons.

    Small cells might only be needed in dense urban cores. Open source network elements, virtualization, better radios, use of unlicensed and shared spectrum or shared infrastructure will change the cost curve.

    And small cells cost an order of magnitude less than macrocells. They might eventually, in volume, cost two orders of magnitude less.

    Korea Telecom says that, in its 5G deployment to support the recent Olympic games, the use of 28-GHz spectrum required small cells [blogspot.com]. KT says that, compared to 4G, that meant four times the number of cells.

    That might shock some, but that corresponds to a reduction of 50-percent in the cell radius of a 4G macrocell. Mobile operators are well aware of the cell geometry impact of reducing cell size, so the four-fold increase in number of cells arguably is a pleasant surprise.

    That increase in cells means the cell transmitting radius was reduced just 50 percent from 4G deployments using frequencies far lower in the spectrum range. Many would guess that, in urban deployments, cell radii might have to shrink far more than that, which would increase the number of cells four-fold for every additional 50-percent reduction in cell radius.

    The point is that, in the 5G era, mobile operators will have worked quite hard to bend the cost curve, meaning that our old assumptions about infrastructure cost will have to be revised lower.

    It is not at all clear that 5G will cost multiples of 4G, double 4G or even 60 percent more than 4G, which is a range of casual thinking about 5G infrastructure costs.

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