Free Nationwide Wireless Internet Access?

LiquidEdge writes "ISP-Planet is reporting that startup M2Z wants to offer 95% of America free wireless Internet access using the 20Mhz frequency allocation. They're backed by Kleiner Perkins, one of the most successful VC firms in history, and being started by the guy who built the @Home network and a former FCC Wireless Bureau Chief. 384/128 speeds will be free and they'll sell the higher speeds and the government will get a kickback of the revenue."

Intriguing, but...

[TripMaster Monkey]

...it also sounds strangely familiar [intel.com], somehow...

From TFA (emphasis mine):

"M2Z's goal is ... provide free high speed connections to 95 percent of U.S. consumers without any recurring fees. This is a grand undertaking."

Translation: We won't see it in our lifetimes.

I hope I'm wrong, but this sort of thing has been tried before, with less than satisfactory results [dailywireless.org].

Frequency Allocation

[Detritus]

According to this [teleclick.ca], they plan to use 2155-2175 MHz, not 20 MHz. After all the nonsense with BPL. I was afraid that someone else was stupid enough to propose using HF for short-range data transmission.

20 MHz *Bandwidth*, not Frequency

[Parker51]

"20Mhz frequency allocation"

More precisely, a 20 MHz *bandwidth* of frequencies in the 2155-2175 MHz band. I did a double-take when first reading this article, because it almost reads as though this service will be operating on a center carrier frequency of 20 MHz. That wouldn't make sense, as that's smack in the middle of the High Frequency, or "shortwave," bands. Not only does that provide worldwide propagation at modest signal powers (as little as a few Watts), users of those frequency bands would be limited to at most a few hundred kHz of bandwidth, which would be unusuable for high-speed computer networking.

So, the M2Z service is proposing to run on a microwave band, requiring lots of infrastructure and towers, like WiFi or cellular telephone.

Re:Not enough bandwidth

[MoOsEb0y]

A single 802.11a channel occupies 16.6 Mhz of bandwidth. This gets 54 mbps using QAM. Look it up on wikipedia if you don't believe me. Using CDMA and directional antennas, the issue of signals jumping on each other could easily be solved. 20 Mhz is plenty of bandwidth for 384kbps wireless. I pay $15 a month for this already with Sprint, so handing it out for free would be great.

Oh, and yes.. TFA is slashdotted.

Ok, working link finally

[lorcha]

In case anyone wants to RTFA, I was finally able to get Coral to cache a copy of it. You can view the article in all its glory here [nyud.net].

More Info on M2Z

[theGreater]

M2Z Networks, Inc. 2800 Sand Hill Road, Suite 150 Menlo Park, CA 94025 [google.com]
M2Z's website [m2znetworks.com]
M2Z FCC application [m2znetworks.com]

-theGreater.

Or 95% of the web sites

[PIPBoy3000]

It looks like they'll be implementing an "always on" filter. From their filing [dslprime.com]:

Mandatory Filtering of Indecent and Obscene Material. M2Z commits to mandatory filtering of indecent and obscene material for the National Broadband Radio Service. This will be accomplished through a compulsory setting on the service that will utilize state of the art filters, taking every reasonable and available step to block access to sites purveying pornographic, obscene or indecent material. Like the free service itself, M2Z's content filtering will be "always on." Moreover, National Broadband Radio Service customers will be unable to alter the filters as they constitute an essential element of that service. To accomplish these critical filtering functions, M2Z plans to route National Broadband Radio Service traffic through a set of servers that can examine the traffic flows for improper activity and restrict access as required. Thus, the nation's children -- and their parents -- will have free access to broadband that is not only very affordable but also family-friendly and free from pornographic and other indecent material.

Think of the children . . .

Re:Um Excuse me?

[hackstraw]

Um, the 1990's called, they want their business model back!

Oh, and this is started by the guy who built the @Home network. This is the same guy that had a pretty much monopoly on high-speed, almost nationwide coverage, that everybody wanted, but just couldn't seem to make any cash off of it.

I want the 90s back!

Re: Or 95% of the web sites

[Electrum]

No porn? It says a lot about their lack of business sense that they're deliberately blocking the content that has driven most of the technological innovation of our times.

From the above linked document:

Adult consumers providing M2Z with appropriate proof that they are of the age of majority, for example through the use of a credit card, can subscribe to a premium product.

Re:Not enough bandwidth

[tinkerghost]

Ummm, that FCC charge is a surcharge that goes directly into the pocket of the Telco.
It's there as part of the settlement that made everyone open their networks to competition. In exchange for that & loosing part of the very lucrative LD business (local/last-mile can be a loss leader in rural areas - which is covered under grants funded by the FUSF fee), the telcos get's to charge everyone the FCC charge.
So, no the FCC charge doesn't go to the FCC - stunned me to find that tidbit out.

Kleiner Perkins?

[mapkinase]

Kleiner Perkins, one of the most successful VC firms in history

Here is their portfolio [kpcb.com]

Why I am not impressed?

Re:Not enough bandwidth

[Kadin2048]

They are definitely wrong; 20 MHz really isn't any good for the type of bandwidth they want, unless they took a huge swath of spectrum.

I noticed however that aside from what I knew was down around 20MHz (namely the 15m amateur band), there is a chunk of specturm that's just allocated to "Fixed" and "Mobile" operation (20.010 to 21.0 MHz), so it's not wholly unbelievable. That's the same allocation as the frequencies they're actually asking for, which is a 20 MHz block up at 2155 MHz.

Anyone with an interest in IT these days owes it to themselves to take a look at the Freqency Allocation Chart [doc.gov]. Most people I've showed it to (I have a large printout on my wall) are generally surprised at the huge swaths of bandwidth taken up by commercial broadcasting allocations that are barely utilized today. By far the most obvious hog on the chart is the AM radio spectrum, but the VHF and UHF TV bands are pretty bad, too, for what most people get from them.

Of course, I'm probably deluding myself to even imagine that whatever purpose the FCC is going to put them towards, if/when they're reallocated, will do any more public good then sitting there un/under-utilized, like they are right now.

Re:Not really

[Agripa]

Channel Capacity (bits/s) = 0.332 x Bandwidth x SNR (db) from Shannon-Hartley theorem [wikipedia.org] is a rough estimate but assumes better conditions then they would likely get. Pessimistically, 10MHz and 10db gives 33.2 Mbits/s total. A lot depends on the details like cell size, transmit/receive turn around time, and transmit power.

Re:How do we make money?

[MountainLogic]

The use of Law [wikipedia.org] is correct in this case. While it is not a physical law it is a fair to describe it as a technological law derived from repeated empirical observations of technological development behavior.

From the Wiki:

A physical law, scientific law, or a law of nature is a scientific generalization based on empirical observations of physical behavior. They are typically conclusions based on the confirmation of hypotheses through repeated scientific experiments over many years, and which have become accepted universally within the scientific community. However, there are no strict guidelines as to how or when a scientific hypothesis becomes a scientific law.

snip

Physical laws are distinguished from scientific theories by their simplicity. Scientific theories are generally more complex than laws; they have many component parts, and are more likely to be changed as the body of available experimental data and analysis develops. This is because a physical law is a summary observation of strictly empirical matters, whereas a theory is a model that accounts for the observation, explains it, relates it to other observations, and makes testable predictions based upon it. Simply stated, while a law notes that something happens, a theory explains why and how something happens, in terms of the more fundamental laws.

Author Dave Burstein here, agreeing

[Daveberstein]

Dave Burstein here, author of this one. Comments are right on target, so I thought to stop by with some followup.
1- The business plan sounds dubious, but heck, let's let Kleiner Perkins pay the bill to find out whether they are chasing a dot-com model. May or may not be decent business (smart folk like Dewayne Hendricks are skeptical), but it's good policy to get it built. They are only asking for a 15 year license, not perpetual.
2- The existing carriers will fight like hell to stop anything like this, as noted. So instead of whining, do something in D.C.. I hear more people making noise on these forums than I ever hear in Washington. I know you think Washington never listens, but I've seen ideas of mine in FCC regulations and congressional statements. You may not have the $million AT&T gave to Congressman Bobby Rush, but may of the people making decisions are honest and will listen to you as well. Email me daveb at dslprime.com for some ideas.
3- "So, will this be 95% of the population of the U.S., or 95% of the geographical area?" They are aiming for 95% of the population, with a sensible excuse not to get to the other 5%: excess cost of fiber to connect the towers to the Internet backbone. So my next editorial will be: Serving the next 10%: FCC needs to bring down the cost of backhaul Revive tough "special access" rules where broadband is hard to get (suggesting that if the local carrier isn't offering DSL, make them lease fiber cheaply to someone who will.)
4- All that said about universal broadband coverage on land, some small portion of users (my guess is 1-3% but no one has hard data) are best served by satellite because of terrain/distance problems. Policy on that is to find a way to bring down the price/bring up the speed of satellite service. I always prefer to do that by competition when that can work.
Dave Burstein
Editor, DSL Prime

Re:384/128 is low speed?

[windex]

The whole play is a hack on teleco system inefficencies.

If you order 5 or more phone lines, the ILEC is going to run a T1, because a T1 uses less copper than 5 analog lines.

The CLEC is then going to get the other end of that T1, and is going to offer to sell you cheap data on it, since hell, it is taking up a switch port anyway. And since the CLEC controls the circuit, hell, let's turn the whole thing over on ATM and do everything on demand, so you can get that full 1.54mbit of use out of it, eh?

No one winds up paying a circuit charge, because it's saving the damned teleco money at the end of the day. :)

I learned this trick working for a CLEC. They started quoting T1's with integrated voice lines to data customers who never used or even knew the voice lines were part of the circuit, just to cut costs.