Wireless

Another Kind of Unlicensed RF

Many companies are delivering broadband fixed wireless Internet service over the unlicensed 2.4 GHz band. Few know that another unlicensed spectrum also exists.

by Gerry Blackwell

ISPs who have been dabbling in fixed wireless broadband, certainly any who have followed this column, will by now know all about the unlicensed radio spectrum available for operating wireless access services in the 2.4 GHz band.

What they may not know is that there is another block of relatively little used unlicensed spectrum set aside by the FCC in the 5.8 GHz band.

The FCC designates it the National Information Infrastructure band. U-NII (the 'u' stands for unlicensed and it's pronounced yoo-knee) was intended to bridge the so-called "digital divide" by providing a way for smaller competitors to quickly and cheaply get up and running with broadband access services.

Happening
Adaptive Broadband was one of the first radio equipment manufacturer to jump into the fray and it's still the leading U-NII vendor.

A handful of service providers, including Fuzion Communications of Boca Raton, Florida, have now begun to exploit this spectrum using Adaptive equipment.

In fact, availability of the high-throughput Adaptive gear was a primary incentive for Fuzion to get into the wireless business in the first place, says vice president of operations Robert Campbell.

Fuzion was formed in February 1999 and launched commercial service in November. It currently has over 100 mostly small and medium-size business customers in South Florida, its most mature market.

The company operates in three places: Tampa, Florida; near Denver, Colorado; and in upstate New York around Rochester.

Fuzion's plan is to roll out across the country. It also recently announced a launch in Latin America, in Panama, and it intends to offer service in Canada as well.

Pluses and minuses
As Campbell explains, the U-NII band has both advantages and disadvantages for access service providers when compared to 2.4 GHz.

First, because it's a higher frequency, it can carry more data in a given chunk of spectrum. In Internet access terms, that means more throughput to the customer. Fuzion offers access services from 500Kb to 155Mb.

Yes, you read right — 155 megabits per second.

On top of that, the Adaptive Broadband technology is engineered differently from much of the equipment used in the 2.4 GHz band. In those networks, users often contend for bandwidth with others linked to the same hub.

But with the Adaptive equipment, Fuzion can provide a dedicated ATM channel to each subscriber.

This means Fuzion can offer the bandwidth required for very high-throughput applications — including video — and the quality of service those applications require as well.

The other big advantage of U-NII is that, because it is relatively new spectrum — it was allocated in 1996 — and because the FCC limits how it can be used, it's less congested than 2.4 GHz.

Campbell points out that 2.4 GHz is used for everything from residential cordless phones to wireless LANs to point-to-point microwave shots.

"You won't see 5.8 used for LANs or cordless phones," he predicts. "It will continue to be used for what it was designed for — broadband connections."

There are downsides to the U-NII band. Signals cannot be amplified the way they can in 2.4GHz networks, which means they can't pass through low-density obstacles like drywall and glass — which 2.4 GHz can, making wireless LANs possible.

And where a few tree branches in the way of a transmitter would only slightly degrade service in a 2.4 GHz network, it would cause an outage in a 5.8 GHz network. The radios need absolutely clear line of sight.

This makes network engineering trickier, but by no means impossible. And on the bright side, there are no concerns about atmospheric conditions interfering with reception, Campbell says.

5.8 GHz and you
So how could ISPs use this spectrum?

Well, a determined ISP with the right skill sets could conceivably do what Fuzion has done. But to set up the stable point-to-multipoint networksthat Fuzion has would require more RF know-how than the average ISP posseses.

As Campbell says, "Does the ISP really want to invest its own time and energy, or would it be more apporpriate to find a partner who understands the RF side, but isn't a competitor."

Ah, and that would be? Correct. Fuzion Communications.

Although Fuzion in fact does offer ISP services direct to its customers — and operated only in that way until recently — it is now beginning to wholesale its bandwidth to local and regional ISPs.

The unannounced first partner is WAMnet, an ISP and CLEC operating in south Florida. Fuzion will also be distributing its service through local ISPs in Panama.

ISP partners must commit to bringing a certain amount of business to Fuzion in order to maintain advantageous pricing that lets them offer broadband services to customers at competitive rates.

"For us, it's more feet on the street," says Matt Haynes, the company's new vice president of marketing. "But we don't want to compete with the ISP."

The ISP retains complete control of the account, Haynes stresses.

"Having come from the country's largest ISP, AOL, I understand the desire to control that customer. So we're telling ISPs, 'You own the customer relationship.' Of course, that also means they own all the headaches."

According to Haynes, the company is now routinely contacting ISPs wherever it establishes a network, asking them if they would like to retail Fuzion's services.

For ISPs who already have business customers clamoring for broadband access, or for those who would like to move into the business market with a nice differentiator, Fuzion is one possible solution.

But it's not in many places yet and the company is guarded about its expansion plans. Haynes says it will be "strong in the Southwest," and Boston is to be one of the next markets launched.

One niggling concern: nothwithstanding Haynes' assurances to the contrary, Fuzion is competing with ISPs since it sells access services direct to small and medium-size business customers.

 —End