[CUWiN] Slate on community wireless networks

[Paul Smith]

On Sep 14, 2004, at 4:45 PM, Illustrious niteshad wrote:
>> On Tue, 14 Sep 2004, Paul Smith wrote:
>>> http://slate.msn.com/id/2106657/
>>>
>>> I'm composing a response to Paul emphasizing emerging spectrum
>>> management methods that mitigate interference.
>>
>> This is a pretty shoddy piece of work.  I wonder how much of it was
>> written in consultation with Ron Resnick of the WiMax Forum and where
>> they're getting their information on Wi-Fi capabilities (since they 
>> are
>> clearly incorrect -- CUWiN has multiple links that are way over 300 
>> feet
>> and can make solid links through trees of several hundred meters 
>> before
>> things become marginal).  I do agree that city-wide WiFi systems 
>> won't be
>> "free", but they'll be "free to the end-users" if they're municipally
>> supported (thus helping to eliminate the digital divide and allowing 
>> _all_
>> users to get online, not just the priviledged few who can afford it).
>
> First, we must define "municipally supported."  To my mind, municipal 
> has a much more organized connotation associated with it than does 
> "community."  "Municipal" implies that the city government will be 
> involved, as is the case in Philiadelphia.  If the city is absorbing 
> the cost of building and supporting the network, as well as the cost 
> of providing bandwidth to the Internet from the network, then it is 
> decidedly _not_ free; the citizens are paying for this service through 
> the various municipal taxes they pay.  In my experience, a concerned 
> group of citizens is capable of acting far more quickly and 
> efficiently than the government ever could.  Therefore, I very much 
> favor the community co-op model in terms of paying the costs 
> associated with the network, since I believe that this will lead to a 
> lower total cost to the end-users of the network.  That said, I also 
> have no problem with subsidizing the service for those who can't 
> otherwise afford it.
>
> Paul Boutin's article oozes FUD (Fear, Uncertainty & Doubt), which 
> shouldn't surprise any of us, since it was published on MSN 
> Slanted...I mean, Slate ;)  What surprised and shocked me was that 
> they are talking about power outputs (from sector or omnidirectional 
> antennas) of 30 Watts for the licensed users.  In the physics lab, 
> I've personally (accidentally) had my head in the side-band of a 10 
> Watt microwave beam (can't recall if it was 2.4 GHz  or 10 GHz); a 
> very brief exposure gave me a splitting headache that lasted all 
> afternoon.  This shouldn't be surprising, since my brain was basically 
> being cooked.  The microwave spectrum, long-wards of 2 GHz is 
> semi-permeable; if the signal is powerful enough to permeate a wall, 
> it's powerful enough to permeate a person.  Some of that radiation 
> will be absorbed by the person, and the effects of long-term, low 
> doses of radiation are poorly understood at this time.  I don't know 
> much about WiMax, but I'm wondering if all of the proper
>   health physics studies have been done regarding its deployment.

FWIW, this is how Paul B responded to my email to him:

> On Sep 14, 2004, at 1:02 PM, Paul Smith wrote:
>> I think the solution is to continue to lobby the FCC for more 
>> unlicensed
>
> That's almost the party line over at Wired magazine.  In an era of 
> software-defined radio and ultra-wideband transceivers, what's the 
> point of dividing up spectrum as if it were land?  Especially when, as 
> any techie knows, interference happens at the receiver.
>
> Thanks for the helpful and thoughtful email.

--
Paul Smith            Center for Neighborhood Technology
http://www.cnt.org    Chicago, IL