EoW January 2014

Transatlantic cable

† For now, at least, the preferred approach to the new-old problem of radio spectrum pollution seems to be a combination of heightened awareness and watchful waiting. The FCC’s Mr Knapp cautioned against snap judgments as to the need for interference prevention. Acknowledging the di culty of creating reasonable targets for noise levels, he told FierceWirelessTech that there must be an appropriate balance between control of radio noise and the impact on services and devices. “We’d all like to see the radio noise be zero, as long as [the standard is] applied to somebody else’s products,” Mr Knapp said. “Your desired signal may be noise to someone else.”

services – the issue was attracting renewed interest. A wireless industry source o ered a succinct explanation: the more devices, the more opportunities there are for those devices to both generate and su er from interference. (“Industry Wrestles with the Growing Problem of Spectrum Pollution,” 18 th November) Gordon Reichard Jr, CEO of Isco International (Elk Grove Village, Illinois), told Ms Parker that his company, which provides network products designed to reduce spectrum interference, sees incidental interference from such seemingly innocuous devices as uorescent bulbs “every day, all the time, every place in the United States.” Mr Reichard said that interference can be caused by such varied “unintentional radiators” as ticket readers at airports, electronic cash registers and FM radio stations. Big problems can also be caused by intentional radiators, such as bidirectional ampli ers (BDAs), which are commonly used on river barge ships, cruise ships, and trucks serving oil and gas elds. According to the Silicon Flatirons Center, an interdisciplinary research centre at the University of Colorado School of Law, “Evidence is emerging that the radio noise oor is rising in higher-frequency bands that are especially important to both commercial and public safety applications.” Julius Knapp, chief of the O ce of Engineering and Technology of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) – pointed out that, not only is spectrum being used for voice and data communications, it is also key to entirely new technologies, such as electric vehicle charging and radio frequency (RF) lighting. Even so, said Mr Knapp, who delivered the keynote address at a recent Silicon Flatirons radio spectrum pollution event, “Radio noise has been rising since the rst radio was turned on. This is not really a new phenomenon.”

Spectrum of another kind – ‘TV white space’ – enables wireless broadband connectivity in rural higher-education communities

AIR.U (Advanced Internet Regions/University) is a consortium of education associations, public interest groups and high-tech companies organised to establish vacant TV broadcast spectrum (“white space networks”) on American college and university campuses with few high-speed broadband options, and in surrounding rural areas. Declaration Networks Group manages the rst such network at West Virginia University, in the only US state wholly within the largely rural Appalachian area. Established to plan, deploy and operate super wi- technologies, the AIR.U co-founder aims to manage more such networks.

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January 2014