August 03, 2005
On The Personal Telco Project And Unwire Portland
Can We All Get Along?
Last week, K5M posted some notes from the public workshop held to discuss the Unwire Portland initiative for a citywide wireless cloud.
We've been focused on on particular part of those notes, since we're a moral supporter of the Personal Telco Project, in addition to any other free wifi nodes around town. Here's the part of the notes we've been stuck on:
Question: Personal Telco has hundreds of public hotspots. Are there interference issues?
Lampe:
-in theory they go back to the FCC
-there have been some. often unlicensed spectrum is allowed to exist and it gets worked out through antennas direction, and frequency selection
-it's not something the city is involved with.
So we sent email to Matthew Lampe of the Bureau of Technology Services and to Rashid Ahmed of the Portland Development Commission seeking an expansion on just what these notes may have been referring to, exactly.
Lampe appears to be out of the office until tomorrow, but what follows is the response in full from Ahmed, which we received this morning.
It looks to me like the answer was misquoted. I've consulted with one of our technical advisors to develop the following response:
Wi-Fi (including the 802.11a/b/g bands) operates in unlicensed spectrum allocated by the FCC. That means that anyone using certified equipment that does not exceed the permitted ERP (Effective Radiated Power) can run suitable equipment in these respective bands. The standard is very robust and capable of handling many networks.
My understanding is that a Provider would have to perform a spectrum analysis to determine where existing signals are and work around them. If you were to perform a spectrum analysis or Radio Frequency survey of downtown Portland today, you would find many Wi-Fi networks in operation, and adding another through this process will not bring those existing networks to a halt thanks to the standards developed by the IEEE.
The City is very supportive of Personal Telco's accomplishments and views this project as complimentary (but not in any way a replacement) to their efforts.
In addition to any general reader comments, we specifically invite those involved either in Unwire Portland, the Personal Telco Project, or with any other wifi nodes in Portland to discuss this here.
Comments (7)
Chris Smith on 03 Aug 2005
Having worked with PTP to set up the City Club node at O'Bryant Square, I can tell you that you can see about 12 different access points (some on the same channels) at that spot, including another PTP node on the other side of the building, but no one has complained about interference.
I think it's a non-issue.
Even at my home in NW Portland I can see four or five (only two of them from my house :-)).
I think it works out by channel selection and proximity generally.
The One True b!X on 03 Aug 2005
It's a non-issue from the technical standpoint. My concern was with how Lampe's remarks were reported in the K5M notes, because the appeared in that form to indicate something of a dismissal of PTP and/or a woeful misunderstanding of the issues involved.
The remarks above from Ahmed seem to negate those concerns. But it's important to remember that what should be a non-issue from a technical standpoint can easily become a very big issue from a political standpoint, or from the standpoint of a commercial entity coming in to install this cloud.
allehseya on 03 Aug 2005
Uhm....speaking of clouds -- I'm in one when it comes to this (last time I was able to wrap my head around the concepts --- but then this blows my understanding again). Do either of you recommend a handy, thorough website for Idiots like me? Does Tel-Co have dummy nights / workshops?
Sharon Greenfield on 03 Aug 2005
My key question is why are we even considering Wifi instead of Wimax?
Setting up thousands of little nodes on lamposts around a city seems extremely inefficient, wasteful, and with more of a percentage probability of errors. Why do that, when you can instead just set up 2 or 3 bases on the tv/mobile phone towers surrounding the city. I mean come on.
Don't get me wrong, I love Wifi- my house is covered happily. However, one must consider the best application of a technology before implementation. If you have a budget for something that is going to be considered a city service, don't hack around- do it right. Covering a whole city in Wifi is crazy. Other cities close to us are about to implement Wimax:
Seattle for example.
p.s.- don't let the $figures in that article scare anyone off. That is not cost of operations. That is not the City of Seattle implementing- that is a for-profit company.
Justin on 03 Aug 2005
In response to the post about WIMAX - I think the entire point of clouding the city in WiFi is that is a proven, reliable, and inexpensive technology - for which most people with laptops already have the equipment (wifi card) that enables them to use it.
$650/month may be a good deal for a T-1 like service - but I thought the whole point of a wifi network was that it was cheaper, not more expensive, than a wired service.
The 2 systems are entirely different, have different hardware and different standards. Can you even buy hardware for WIMAX yet???
Greg on 04 Aug 2005
Hello. As the person who actually took those notes (on behalf of Mr. Merrill), let me clear up a few things. First, the notes were not meant to be verbatim, but merely a point-by-point summary of what was being talked about. Second, despite his claim of being "misquoted", I think that Ahmed's explanation doesn't contradict my notes at all. 801.11 is a frequency spectrum the FCC has kept unlicensed. That means that as long as everyone plays nice with their use of it (not putting out too powerful of a signal), there are no problems, pretty much just what Lampe said. But Lampe also definitely said that he's heard of some problems of this variety occurring but that they are infrequent and something the city has no say over one way or another (not having any regulatory authority over the radio spectrum). All of this is just what my notes said.
On the issue of the political relationship between Unwire Portland and PTP, while it definitely seemed like Commissioner Adams and Lampe himself appreciated the work PTP have done to make Portland known as a wireless destination city, they also see the Unwire Portland plan as superceding the network PTP is building. They are not interested in the (utopian) goals of PTP (having a roof-to-roof network filled with local content that would be viable even in the event of a complete collapse of the wider internet). They're writing a contract with a large, very un-personal Telco, for gosh sakes. Comcast was the main name mentioned as a company that had been "sniffing around city hall" in pursuit of the deal. Their goal is to make wireless service available at an affordable price ($20/mo) to all city residents. They are using the combined buying power of the City, the school system, and TriMet to try and get good terms on the contract. Once the system is built, though, the city will have no regulaotry authority over it outside of enforcing the terms of the contract. If the Telco running the system does things that interfere with PTP's network (from node placement and powering to lawsuits), the city has no recourse. So, my conlcusion was that it is definitely possible that the new wireless system and PTP will exist in harmony (just as plenty of private sector businesses operate in close proximity to related non-profits without seeking to wipe them out), but that the structure of the deal is such that the city has no way real way to enforce this harmony and so it is likely to exist exactly as long as maintaining it is in the interest of whatever company ends up with the contract.
tomhiggins on 06 Aug 2005
First off, WiMax is great and good and to all the Intel folks here its all good etc etc...but for what we are doing it has two pitfalls.
1) it shines best when its using the licesned bands of spectrum...that sorts kills off the whole DIY grassroots thing right from the get go. That costs money and opens up a number of womry cans like regulations and the sort that again speak against the very things that make the PTP work. We have a few years worth of the PTP working to look at to say these things.
2) it is so overhyped that even if it delivered on half the things its touted to do its still going to be 8x the pain in the rear as not.
802.11 b/g has a lot of potential still untaped. Roofnet anyone? Also it speaks to one of the PTP's earliest Big Picture Plans (http://wiki.personaltelco.net/index.cgi/ThePlan)
The idea is not to buld one network to rule them all and in the darkness bind() them, its more about educating and empowering communities to build local networks that connect to other neighborhood netowrks in a way that lets them all be connected in an affilliation of netowrks...ya know like how that internet thing is rumored to have started.
Decentralized Centralization? Or is it the other way around. One thing Im certian of its no Utopia. It works though and is only getting better the more we work on it and get others involved in it.
As has been pointed out in a comment above the city plan to "Unwire" Portland is all about giving a contract to ONE entity that will run the show, set the price and perhaps, perhaps, play nice and give the city some good prices for its infrastructure.
Perhaps, Perhaps...perhaps.... Like cable being asked in the early days to open itself up to allow competition....and that worked out how?
I personaly look forward to what is to come. I am sure the PTP as a whole is open to things that will help us promote and build public wireless networks through community support and education. If the city awards the contract to an entity that can work with us from time to time on that, wooohoo we all win. If not, well then we get to become good at working around the damage; another thing that insternet thing is known for.
Whatever happens the PTP is going to be here doing what we do. Want to be a part of that? You know you do! Come to the website , find out when our next gathering is and show up.
-tomhiggins
http://www.personaltelco.net