Comments in 4.9 GHz proceeding could have 700 MHz impact

[902]

Washington, D.C.

Yesterday, the FCC voted to initiate a proceeding to reconsider the use of the 4.9 GHz band dedicated solely to public safety a decade ago. Part of the proceeding will be to examine whether the band can be used better by allowing non-public-safety entities access to the 50 MHz of contiguous spectrum and under what conditions — a question that also has been raised about public safety’s 700 MHz broadband airwaves.

Comments in 4.9 GHz proceeding could have 700 MHz impact -- Urgent Communications article

 

[techman210]

In my area, I have found that the 4.9 GHz band is no similar to the congestion found in 5.3/5.8 GHz bands.

Since there is licensing without coordination, no limitation on modulation or bandwidth by users coupled with no requirement for vendors to police themselves and sell to anybody, and no field checks for licensure by FCC engineers, urban areas are just as plagued with noise, interference, unstable throughput as the above license-free bands.

Hunting down interference and operators using too much ERP and unauthorized antennas like omnidirectional at fixed locations requires time, patience and a very good portable spectrum analyzer, which is nearly a $30K investment that agencies don't have.

On one hand, I would oppose the change, on the other, it's probably too late as it's become just another Part 15 "digital CB" band in many urban areas. Just toss it back to the Part 15 users and start again somewhere else.

 

[radioman2001]

I'm sure the Telco's are the ones who instigated this proceeding. They are looking to get something for their loss in the D block 700 mhz fight. In the NYC area NYPD has the entire 4.9 block licensed, but not constructed. I was looking for some bandwidth so I can dump Telco's very problematic phone lines at some of our remote sites, but I was informed we would have to fight for any use of it, since NYPD had a loooong term plan. Don't now what it is but it's looong term.

 

[902]

As they say, the horse is out of the barn on 4.9. Deployment has been random and some places have taken a very, very broad interpretation of the allowed uses to include "public-private" municipal wi-fi (read: providing a for-profit service on privileged spectrum under the aegis of a municipal service). In hindsight, its deployment was very poorly thought out, and having RPCs develop plans for something that was essentially a free-for-all was just a waste of time.

The idea in concept was great, though. I did use 4.9 to eliminate a troublesom LEC special circuit path at a previous employer with fantastic results. The system broke even in 8 months because it eliminated a recurring cost and had more uptime than the copper it replaced. It was tremendous to hang microwave and not have to run waveguide, bolt racks, install dehydrators, or fill out the point-to-point licenses (although I did have to go into ULS to build point-to-point for fixed deployment). The stuff I used was plug, point, and play with gazinta/gazoutta performance (what gazinta here gazoutta there). Before I vested out, I also started the process to buy a suitcase with a pair of IDU/ODU/antenna kits, "just because." I believed it was a good investment and could be literally thrown together as needed.

Seems the wireless people want to use this as the backbone for broadband and this is laying one of the blocks. Guess they'll have to go to big bucks 6 Gig or higher licensed links if their BER become intolerable.