Radio Moon Bounce

Everybody loves a good moon bounce. Today's moon bounce didn't involve taking your shoes off and jumping, but it was every bit as fun (if you are a geek). Every so often, when the moon is in the right spot, amateur radio operators ("hams") organize a competition to see who can communicate with the most people across the world by bouncing signals off of the moon. Today was the "Echoes of Apollo Moon Bounce" event -- a global ham celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission. The NY Times did a decent overview of the event.

I spent a good chunk of the day listening to these signals. Growing up, my dad was often in the basement with his radios or on the roof tweaking his antennas. I was always fascinated by his equipment and the people he talked to from all over the world, but by the time I got old enough to really get into it I had been bit by the computer bug. My dad sometimes compared what I was doing at age 12 with BBS'es and my 2400 baud modem with some of his ham radio passions. I still remember my first VoIP experience in the early 90's, talking to an Australian guy over dialup.

I never did get my ham radio license, in part because of the pull of computers and the burgeoning internet. Nevertheless, in the years since then I've gained a greater appreciation of the radio spectrum. Spectrum is a valuable shared resource that we have allocated to different users for communication. Sometimes we have tried to choose who is the most important, sometimes we have auctioned use of it off to the highest bidder, and other times we have allowed a "commons" oriented unlicensed use. New technologies shape the way we are able to use this common good, and we have plenty of active policy debate over these issues. Just yesterday I watched a New America Foundation event that was "optimistically" titled "The End of Spectrum ‘Scarcity': Opportunistic Access to the Airwaves."

Amateur radio operators have traditionally operated via analog means as they communicate by voice or morse code. Over time, they incorporated packet radio, allowing computers to transmit over certain frequencies using special analog-to-digital hardware. In the time since my dad's basement tinkering and my first modem, the worlds of radio and computer -- analog and digital -- have converged. The latest example of this was of course the analog-to-digital transition for broadcast television in the United States, and the extent to which this opens up unused "white spaces" for broadband. The most important innovation in wireless digital communications has been the emergence of Software Defined Radio ("SDR") technology that allows tuning, transmitting, and receiving to be done in software instead of special hardware. This means that computing devices can become general purpose radios, and whereas my dad used to have to buy new transistors and diodes at the hamfest, I can just download and install a new radio image for my Android phone.

Receiving the Earth-Moon-Earth ("EME") transmissions requires a decent parabolic antenna, but I don't have one. So how did I spend the day listening to radio signals bouncing off of the moon? I tuned in via a Dutch dish that was streaming online. Now, it would be pretty cool if the operators of this dish were simply tuning around for signals and sending a single audio stream out to anyone who wished to listen. However, what they did was even cooler. They captured all of the data for a frequency band (1.24-1.3 GHz, what the hams call "23 cm" because of the wavelength) and then they published a web-based application for SDR decoding on that raw stream so that each person could tune to any transmission within that band! The interface includes a draggable tuner and live spectrum analyzer output of signals. You can actually see what location on the dial every other person is tuning to. This combination of SDR and internet-enabled interactivity just blew my mind. I chatted briefly with the folks in the Netherlands:

me: geek question: does websdr send all of the receiver data to the end-user and then the java app tunes locally, or is the java app instructing the server how to process before sending the stream?
them: The latter. The raw data stream would be about 3 Mbit/s, that would be too much for many home connections.
me: sdr is on the main cpu or other boards?
them: On the main CPU. The only external hardware is an analogue downconverter.

It really was fun to listen to the moon bounce, and the web-based experience just reinforced how much is possible in the radio spectrum when it is combined with computing. The traditional model of frequency allocation for a specific purpose needs to give way to more efficient spectrum-sharing techniques. The amateur radio operators have developed sophisticated social norms for sharing their radio waves, but they are highly inefficient when compared to something like WiFi, which is in turn highly inefficient compared to more modern approaches. As an example of what a bridging experience the moon bounce was for me, the signal was arriving in the 1.2 GHz band in the Netherlands, which then was piped over the internet to my house and then re-transmitted to my laptop over WiFi at 2.4 Ghz.

As a policy matter, digitization of the airwaves means that we need to re-think how we use them. Today, computers can directly connect and transmit more in a millisecond than an entire ham radio back-and-forth ("CQ, CQ, CQ..."). We need a map of the vast swaths of unused spectrum, and an automated digital means for sharing them. That's part of the upcoming National Broadband Plan being created by the FCC.

That's not to say that ham radio should go away. The thrill of finding a remote station in Russia, the Netherlands, London or Mexico and tuning it in for that brief moment is quite an experience. Everybody loves a moon bounce.

Here are a few excerpts I captured while I was listening (sorry about the lousy tuning in a couple places, it just makes it sound more like the Death Star attack from Star Wars):

Listen to the MP3

Radio Berkman: A (Porn) Free Nationwide Internet?

Berkman just posted an audio interview with me, where I discuss the FCC's proposal for the AWS-3 spectrum auction and how it was scuttled.

A scheduled FCC vote on a free nationwide wireless internet, was derailed this week after outcry from both the Bush administration, the ACLU, Congressional Democrats, and the digerati. What was it about the FCC’s proposal that raised the eyebrows of such a diverse group of opponents? David Weinberger interviews Stephen Schultze of the Berkman Center to find out more.

Listen here.

AWS-3 Vote Postponed Indefinitely

Late Friday, Chairman Martin canceled the October 18th FCC Open Meeting. This is a fairly exceptional development. The Commission was set to vote on the increasingly controversial rules for auctioning off the AWS-3 spectrum -- a 25MHz block of airwaves in the 2GHz range. Martin had been pushing for two fairly unique requirements on the ultimate winner: 1) That the winner must provide no-cost internet access on a portion of the spectrum and 2) That they must filter "objectionable material" (possibly with an opt-out for adults). In July, I co-authored comments explaining why this second condition raised troubling free speech concerns.

Martin has come under increasing pressure from all sides. The ACLU criticized the "family friendly" aspects of the plan, in chorus with comments from public interest groups. Then, the Bush Administration sent a letter to the FCC last Wednesday, stating that "the draft AWS-3 order would constrain a provider's usage of this spectrum, favoring a particular business model and potentially precluding the spectrum from allocation to the most valuable use" (coverage here). Nevertheless, Martin appeared determined to see the plan through, and issued the formal agenda the next day.

But on Friday, Congressmen Rockefeller and Waxman weighed in with a letter. These are the two guys who will head up the committees that oversee the FCC, in the Senate and House respectively. Apparently this pushed Martin over the edge, and he canceled the meeting altogether. FCC Spokesman Robert Kenny said:

"We received the letter from Senator Rockefeller and Congressman Waxman today and spoke with other offices. In light of the letter, it does not appear that there is consensus to move forward and the agenda meeting has been canceled."

Wow. This means that the question of what to do with the AWS-3 spectrum will almost certainly fall to the next FCC. They could start the process over from scratch, with new proposals for what to do with the spectrum and another series of notice-and-comment periods. Hopefully that Commission will take an approach that does not present such significant First Amendment problems. The failure of this ill-designed proposal is a bittersweet victory -- at least we didn't get bad rules out of the process. However, we have also potentially delayed the point at which this spectrum can be used to overcome our national broadband woes.

More coverage:

• Tech Liberation
  
• Ars Technica
• Giga Om
• Wall Street Journal
• Associated Press
  
• Reuters
  
• CNet
• Fierce Wireless
• Washington Post
  
• IDG News
  

The AWS-3 Plot Thickens

Martin is trying to sweeten the deal for his AWS-3 spectrum auction proposal by adding a "use it or lose it" provision. If the winner of the auction does not build out their no-fee wireless internet network to all areas within 5 years, it will lose its license in the non-covered areas. Those areas will then apparently revert to an unlicensed regime. The WSJ article and Reuters articles don't give much detail, but it's clear that the Chairman is doing some strategic leaking.

WASHINGTON -- Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin is proposing giving innovators free unlicensed access to valuable airwaves if the company that buys a license to the channels doesn't meet tough requirements to build a nationwide Internet network.

The proposal has been added to a pending auction of the airwaves. The FCC is scheduled to vote on rules for the sale on Dec. 18. Mr. Martin wants the company that buys the airwaves to devote at least 25% of the spectrum to free Internet access for 95% of the country. The no-cost Internet service also would be smut-free for users under 18. Adult users could opt out of the filter blocking pornographic content.

Mr. Martin said Wednesday that he has circulated two versions of the auction item -- one with the unlicensed provision and one without -- for the other commissioners on the five-member body to review before the meeting. The FCC will vote on only one version, depending on which version the other commissioners prefer, Mr. Martin said.

Mr. Martin wants to sell a nationwide license to the airwaves rather than give the channels to entrepreneurs because he wants to promote free Internet access. By adding a clause that would give away airwaves where there isn't an Internet network after five years, Mr. Martin hopes that the owner of the channels would have an added incentive to build a network.

Mr. Martin said Wednesday that both versions of the auction item include a "use it or lose it" provision in which the owner of the channels would lose spectrum where there is no Internet access. The owner of the channels would "continue to serve whatever area they've built out," he said.

Martin also recently leaked the fact that he is proposing that adults can verify their identity to avoid the porn filter initially mandated for all users of of the no-fee service. I helped author some comments to the FCC explaining why this filter was a bad idea, so an opt-out mechanism could theoretically be a good development... if age verification were viable, and if you thought that adults were eager to identify themselves as possible porn-lovers, and if we assumed that all adults had credit cards. In short, filtering is not a great option even with those caveats.

It all gets decided on the 18th. You can read the latest comments.

FCC Releases White Spaces Order

They voted in favor of the white spaces order on November 4, but it is very common for the Commission to finish hashing out the details of orders after they have approved them (odd, but true). The FCC has finally released the full text of the order, which includes a 100mw power limit for personal/portable devices (40mw on adjacent channels) and 4w for fixed devices. I believe this all means good things for white space devices (those were the numbers many advocates were suggesting), but I'll update this post as more coverage emerges.

• Broadcast Law Blog
• Slashdot
• Broadcasting & Cable
  
• Light Reading
• Broadcast Engineering
  
• TV Technology
  

A Good Day for Openness

Nov 4th brought some exciting developments for openness in several different domains.

First, we elected a president dedicated to government transparency and accessibility. I hope that Obama's "Google for Government" bill is a harbinger of things to come in his administration. Making more information freely available and searchable will allow the better functioning of our government.

Second, a slightly more wonky development. The FCC approved unlicensed use of the "white spaces." This is the culmination of a 4+ year-long process, with heavy lobbying in the past year or so. It opens up huge swaths of spectrum, which any citizen or innovator can put to use for things like wireless broadband.

Third, a geeky development. Somebody rooted the G1 -- the first handset based on the open-source Android operating system. Although the operating system itself is open-source, T-Mobile had locked down all of the interesting stuff. Now that it's unlocked, we will likely see a plethora of interesting development on the platform.

White Spaces and Red Herrings

Even dry policy wonks occasionally find themselves engaged in timely cultural commentary. Thus, we are thrust into debate with country music legends, heavy metal stars, and mega-church leaders. This is the domain of electromagnetic spectrum -- that ephemeral public good that is as essential to modern life as the air we breathe.

The FCC is set to decide what to do with the vast, unused swaths of spectrum between television channels in its open meeting on Election Day. When the rest of the country is paying attention to an historic contest for the ultimate game of King of the Hill, the Commission will be deciding how we are to share (or hoard) one of our most unappreciated public resources.

Back in ancient times, you would turn your television dial through channels received over "bunny ears" and wonder why so many of them showed static. Since then, most of us have transitioned to cable or satellite television, and few of us have noticed that these occasional flurries have turned into a blizzard. In fact, most stations are currently broadcasting in both analog and digital, but in February of 2009 they will have to turn off their analog transmissions (thus doubling the unused space).

What if we could instead use those channels to watch YouTube videos of cats being vacuumed? The future is now. On November 4th, the FCC will be deciding whether or not wifi-like devices can make use of the spaces between television broadcasts. They have spent more than four years investigating this question, and from all accounts they appear to be poised to say "yes." This is where Dolly Parton, Ozzy Osbourne, and Rick Warren come in.

See, all of those folks rely on wireless microphones that already use broadcast television channels when nobody is using them for TV. There are actually a few people who are licensed to do this, but the reality is that none of those I've listed are acting legally. Perhaps we would expect this from bat-biting Ozzy, or perhaps even Dolly... but Rick? How scandalous.

All three of these constituencies have filed comments at the FCC opposing innovative new uses of valuable spectrum. They do so from their understandably biased perspectives. Each wants to preserve their ability to use wireless microphones as they have become accustomed -- in Dolly Parton's case, it is essential that she maintain the integrity of audio fidelity in her live performances of the musical adaptation of "9 to 5."

Don't get me wrong. That was one of my favorite movies as a child, and I have a fondness for her music (it is the saving grace of the entire "country" genre which no longer resembles its roots in the least). However, I disagree with Dolly on this matter. Perhaps I can proceed by familiar analogy.

In "9 to 5" Dolly Parton and her clever co-conspirators exhibited innovation and flexibility, standing up to the incumbents of old. Is it too much of a stretch to claim that legacy broadcasters are similarly generating system-wide inefficiencies through their opposition to flexible use of the spectrum? Probably. But nevertheless, I think that Dolly is on the wrong side of this one. It's time to open the airwaves (if only in the limited fashion proposed). Even the houses of worship are going to have to deal with the fact that they have been misled by representatives from the microphone companies who never bothered to tell them that they were advising them to break the law.

Representative Dingell, Chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce (and ultimate overseer of the FCC, along with the parallel Senate committee), recently wrote a letter to the Commission raising a couple of valid but uninformed questions about white spaces proposals. He asked first why the Commission hadn't considered a licensed approach to the frequencies. Of course, this debate was well-trod long ago. The licensed approach is the instantiation of a classic "Coasian" perspective, which has been debated since the beginning of time (or, at least, the 1950's). The FCC itself convened a task force in 2002 which concluded that:

No single regulatory model should be applied to all spectrum: the Commission should pursue a balanced spectrum policy that includes both the granting of exclusive spectrum usage rights through market-based mechanisms and creating open access to spectrum "commons"...

That whole "commons" thing sounds a bit communist (or, gasp, socialist!) but in fact reasonable sharing of a shared resource makes quite a bit of sense. Despite the full force of the FCC's engineering conclusions to the contrary, the mega-churches assert that "Today, there is no reliable technology that can protect existing services from what would be crippling interference from new portable devices," Ozzy's sound engineer urges that, "The FCC must take steps to insure that catastrophic interference does not occur," and Dolly explains that:

I don't know all the legalese concerning the issue so I've had some very smart people inform me about the legalities here. [...] I have deep concern over the Commission's announcement that it intends to vote on an order allowing devices using spectrum sensing technoogy to occupy the "white space" radio frequencies on November 4, 2008 (Election Day). [...] As you may know, I am an inductee to both the Country Music and Songwriters Hall of Fame and am currently on a world tour supporting my latest album. New regulations could have direct impact on many ventures in which I am directly involved, including: 9 TO 5: THE MUSICAL [...] Dollywood [...] Grande Ole Opry

Dingell's second argument is that the FCC's technical findings may not have been peer reviewed. This point appears to hinge on a much-debated statute that tasks the OMB with "ensuring and maximizing the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information (including statistical information) disseminated by Federal agencies." The OMB's rules are even more debated, and have been viewed by many as an excuse for the powers that be to kill off reports that it disapproves of. Indeed, there was an earlier peer-review of studies related to the white spaces [update: and a similar peer-review of this round of testing has now been posted], and the recent AWS-3 technical study did not undergo a similar process.

Could it be that these objections are merely a red herring?

In other news, the ranking member of Dingell's parallel committee in the Senate, a vocal opponent of open internet access, was today found guilty of multiple felony charges related to his unethical ties to an industry he oversaw.

White Spaces Moving Forward

An issue I care very much about, use of so-called spectrum White Spaces, will be voted on by the FCC on Nov 4.

• Susan Crawford's Post
• WSJ Article
  
• Washington Post summary of Chairman Martin's comments
• Google Public Policy Blog on the issue
• FCC Schedule for the Nov 4th Open Meeting
• The technical report from the FCC's Office of Engineering and Technology
• Comm Daily article "Activists Celebrate Wireless Gains, Relish Prospect of Obama Presidency"
  
• Drew Clark's article "Broadcast Networks Seek ‘Time Out’ on FCC Push for White Spaces" and my reply
  
• more coming...
  

Say "No" to Filtered Nationwide Broadband

I recently joined the Berkman Center for Internet & Society as a fellow, and one of my first efforts was to help draft some comments for the FCC. Many of the folks at the Center were disturbed by the Commission's recent proposal to mandate content filtering on the "AWS-3" band of spectrum it plans to auction off for broadband internet service.

From the summary:

"The Internet is distinguished by its flexibility as a platform on which new services can be built with no pre-arrangement. While requiring filtering of known protocols in itself raises serious First Amendment conflicts, forcing the blocking of unknown or unrecognized traffic hampers both speech and innovation."

You can read our full comments here, and a blog post about it here.