Breaker, breaker: LTE is coming to America's CB radio frequencies Another industry alliance is gearing up to pitch mobile phone spectrum access to spectrum in the 3.5 GHz band – this time using frequencies formerly devoted to Citizens Band (CB) radio users. Following a decision by America's Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to free up 150 MHz of the “truckers' Internet” for unlicensed …
I think you'll find it's still very much alive a kicking in some parts of the US - the only thing I can't understand is how the FCC intends to regulate this, as CB is already pretty much a free-for-all.
They can't keep the CBers out of the amateur bands and they can't keep them within the CB power limits as it is, so how they think they are going track down and deal with Cooter and his mates when they blast a couple of very messy kilowatts over an LTE signal is anyone's guess.
That's the classic CB band. It also has the range to be useful for truckers. There was, for a few years, also a UK band somewhere just short of 1 GHz, but it flopped.
I suspect few writers for The Reg are old enough to remember, and they were possibly playing Elite at the time. CB does things that mobile phones do not, mostly because of the one-to-many aspect combined with the range. It isn't so good for the things you do with a telephone. Even in England, mobile phone coverage, whether voice or data, can be patchy.
I don't remember CB ever being the miracle it was being sold as, but maybe it was useful on heavily-used roads. It seemed to sell more on the gloss of being something American and "sexy", and I think they were showing The Dukes of Hazzard on TV.
You haven't lived until you have heard a Yorkshire farmer pretending to be one of the good ole' boys.
4-10, Good baby...
True, Citizens Radio Service (FCC Part 95) Class D was in the 27MHz band . But there was also an earlier CB (Class A & B) in the 450 band. Class C, IIRC, was 27MHz, remote control, interleaved, but different from, the Class D frequencies.
The new band re-uses the Citizen's Band moniker, but shares nothing else.
"CB" is all but dead. I think you can still get the radios, licenses are no longer required.
I see the antennas still, on Jeeps and other off road vehicles, and on trucks, of course.
Pretty much everyone else (and their kids) use FRS/GMRS 450 MHz FM, which is what CB Class A&B morphed into...
"Also, CB radio today, ham bands next week...."
It's easy to make local rules about what can and can't be done on Ham bands - the tricky part of using them for commercial use is that you have no control over Hams in the rest of the world who, depending on their own county's regs, frequency and modulation mode, may be able to point directional antennas carrying several kilowatts of RF in pretty much any direction they feel like.
Ham frequency allocations are an international allocation under the authority of the ITU - it's not so easy to decide your going to sell some of it off.
Right now, Cooter isn't costing anyone important a lot of money.
If Cooter is causing a telecoms company to lose millions in revenue by knocking out service, you can be sure enforcement will become more of a priority.
But there seems to be some confusion if this is in conflict with CB at all - CB frequencies are far, far too low for high-speed data. Someone might have misinterpreted 'Citizen's Broadband' or mixed up CB and Amateur radio.
Back in the day (1982/83) when the CB craze started in the UK, I had some CB kit. A few years ago I found it up in the loft and, just for the heck of it, set it up again. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it still worked, and was picking up a modest amount of traffic (mostly from vehicles travelling on a nearby trunk road I think)
Agreed. The article is using the wrong vocabulary and ends up being meaningless. CB is 26.9650 MHz to 27.4050 MHz and that only. Any other use of the word CB is just ignorant. The nearest related band is FRS (Family Radio Service) which goes from 462.5625 MHz for channel 1 up to 467.7125 MHz for channel 14.
Does this mean letting people run their own low power community cellular services? This would actually be a great way to share Internet and fill in small areas where signals are blocked or roaming fees are too high. Auctioning it to telcos, or any large commercial deployment, would be a complete waste of public bandwidth.
Meanwhile, 26.965 to 27.405 MHz is still there for trolls leveling up their skills on a giant 1/2 wave antenna before heading to the Internet.
There is NO WAY the incumbent telecom interests are going to allow unlicensed bands that can be used at power levels high enough to cover a community. That would provide competition from community groups who would buy a single high speed link and provide cheap broadband to the whole community.
They've mostly managed to prevent communities wiring themselves for broadband, but if there is a frequency range that's available for their use so no utility right of way is being used, they will have to really stretch to come up with a reason to convince lawmakers to make it illegal.
3.5GHz? Doesn't sound like its going to propagate well through the walls of buildings...
The best spectrum for mobile comms is around about 900MHz. It leads to sensible antenna sizes in the mobile, it propagates well through buildings, it's high enough in frequency that reasonable bandwidths are possible, an so on. Australia did exceptionally well to put their 3G services there instead of 2G, which is what a lot of Europe is stuck with in that band.
And the higher up the frequency table you go, the worse it performs. 3.5 GHz might be appealing because it's available, but to make a large network with widespread coverage and good performance indoors and out sounds expensive.
Currently throughout the world there is a jolly nice bit of spectrum from 960MHz to 1215MHz allocated to radio navigation aids for aviation. I wonder how long it is before governments come under unbearable pressure from wealthy powerful telcos to give that up ("blah blah everything is GPS these days blah blah").
"Currently throughout the world there is a jolly nice bit of spectrum from 960MHz to 1215MHz allocated to radio navigation aids for aviation. I wonder how long it is before governments come under unbearable pressure from wealthy powerful telcos to give that up ("blah blah everything is GPS these days blah blah")."
Nope. At least HERE there's a pushback from the aviation industry and aviation regulators. They're under historic precedent to avoid rocking the plane, so to speak, and there is a need for redundancy, which is why historic navigation aids are still in operation. Since attempting to usurp air-use frequencies poses a safety risk (and the next crash that occurs after such an act will immediately point fingers), those frequencies would have to take something overwhelmingly more useful (or is a direct replacement for the tech it's replacing), then those frequencies are as safe as military bands, which can't be touched out of sovereign security concerns (thus why the Americas don't use Band III).
@Charles 9,
"Nope. At least HERE there's a pushback from the aviation industry and aviation regulators"
Exactly. My point is that the very fact that the aviation industry and regulators are having to push back at all is just plain ridiculous.
One feels that at least in some countries political lobbying, public opinion and telco financial clout has more sway with politicians than does common sense and the local regulatory bodies. For example, in a country where the GPS industry managed to steal a whole adjacent comms band simply by producing rubbish equipment and selling it to everyone without the local regulator noticing or being able to do anything about it afterwards, can one have any faith in the politicians and regulators stopping intrusions into bands that are far more important?
"Exactly. My point is that the very fact that the aviation industry and regulators are having to push back at all is just plain ridiculous."
No, I'm saying that no one would try. The pushback would be both automatic and severe because no one wants to ground one of the big transportation industries. And the regulatory body in question is both national AND under constant scrutiny already, so all they have to do is say, "You told us to keep airplanes from crashing, so we're doing that." There was ALREADY an argument over cell phone use in airplanes just recently, with the FAA being stubborn in the name of safety until given a preponderance of evidence showing they don't interfere. And even then, they STILL won't allow electronics during the takeoff or landing phases.
1) High capacity services need fibre.
2) Radio spectrum is never going to be good at high capacity.
3) Existing Mobile Spectrum is poorly used.
4) It's called cellular because to get more overall capacity you make smaller cells.
Greed pure and simple. King David and another man's wife.
Exactly. The "a single smart hospital might use up to three terabytes of data per day" claim points to the fact they should have wired the place properly for most devices, and for those needing wireless has numerous low power access points.
Actually, lets revisit that last point - WTF should a life-critical device be doing depending on wireless that could be jammed easily for ill intent, or accidentally by someone’s broken phone they forgot to turn off?
"Actually, lets revisit that last point - WTF should a life-critical device be doing depending on wireless that could be jammed easily for ill intent, or accidentally by someone’s broken phone they forgot to turn off?"
Because it's also PORTABLE and has to be able to work ANYWHERE, ANYTIME, including in places WITHOUT A TETHER POINT.
The FCC did a disservice in naming the new Part 96 "Citizens Broadband Radio Service". It does sound like CB, but it is nothing like it. The 3550-3700 MHz band was established in 2015, but isn't usable yet. The idea is that it has three priority license classes, Incumbent, PAL, and GAA:
Incumbents are the federal (mostly Navy) radar systems that must be absolutely protected. Existing 3650 MHz ISPs are also protected incumbents until 2020.
Priority Access Licenses come second. These will be auctioned. But they don't license a channel; if a PAL is not being used, then it's available for GAA users. No spectrum banking.
General Authorized Access is "Licensed by right" -- sort of like unlicensed but with higher power allowed and more specific rules.
The whole thing will be run via a set of Spectrum Authorization Systems, so most devices will need to get a channel Grant from the SAS before transmitting.The SAS enforces the priorities. With some luck the first SASs will be operating by early next year. Breaker Breaker this isn't.
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