MVDDS amounts to a re-use of direct broadcast satellite (DBS) technology. DBS services, like DVB-S in Europe, are created by launching satellites into geo-stationary orbits carrying transceivers that use part of the Ku band (12.2 to 12.7 gigahertz range) of the broadcast spectrum. The satellites must have fancy power supplies and they must be hardened to operate in space conditions. Also, they must be launched-expensive propositions.
So why not just hang the equipment from tall poles, and achieve something similar to cell phone coverage but with enormous digital capacity? The antennas would not need hardening, they would not need to be launched, and you can just plug them into the power grid.
But actually setting up such a network would appear to be out of the question since there are already millions of DBS subscribers using the same bandwidth. But ten years ago a company called Northpoint Technology of Washington DC (reportedly, it was originally a husband and wife engineering team) pointed out that this is not necessarily a problem. The ground antennas of the DBS subscribers are pointed to a small spot in the southern sky, where the service's geo-stationary satellite appears to hover. If you hung the Ku band antennas on poles and arranged them so that they broadcast only to the south, the signals would not be detected by the existing DBS ground antennas. At least, this is the case in the Northern Hemisphere. South of the equator the ground antennas are pointed north.
The situation has been compared to a man standing on the ground, examining something in the sky with a telescope. If the beam of a flashlight hits the man from behind, he will probably not notice.
That sums up the idea of MVDDS. If you don't think it's enough to serve as the foundation for a new broadcast industry, then you'll be surprised to find that they are people with money who disagree with you. In fact, in January the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) raised $ 120 million by auctioning off MVDDS spectrum rights in most American cities.
Ironically, the auction marked a major lobbying defeat for both Northpoint (the inventor of MVDDS) and the DBS services. Northpoint had insisted that it be given the national spectrum rights free of charge. After all, Northpoint had argued, the DBS services had received their bandwidth free of charge. But Congress had been unmoved and the FCC had argued that making the DBS services buy their bandwidth at auction in the U.S. would have set a precedent that might force them to buy bandwidth in every country they broadcast to. That would put them out of business.
As for the DBS services, they had insisted that MVDDS had not been tested to their satisfaction-clouds, trees and buildings might create interference. FCC tests in 1999 uncovered no problems.
The licenses are for one-way video or data services-two-way services will have to use other media for the upstream leg. The licenses do not authorize mobile or aeronautical services. What will actually be done with the bandwidth has not been decided yet.
'It could be a very robust service, but there is no hardware yet,' explained by Richard Doherty, research director at the Envisioneering Group, a consulting firm in New York.
Auction winners are currently experimenting with the technology in various cities, and no business model is yet apparent, he added. The throughput of an MVDDS antenna will have to be split among all subscribers in a pie-shaped area spreading eight to 20 miles to the south. Therefore, the technology would make better sense in suburban areas. There would be too many subscribers in high-density metropolitan areas, and too many broadcast towers would be required in rural areas.
Services should be announced by the end of the year with rollouts expected next year, Doherty predicted.
Doherty's firm had calculated that the cost of MVDDS customer premises equipment should be well under $ 100. The antenna could be small enough to attach to a window with a suction cup, he noted. A broadcast antenna capable of servicing 100,000 subscribers should cost only about $100,000, he estimated.
'MVDDS should be able to offer services unavailable with any other wireless technology, such as guaranteed bandwidth for individual subscribers. The $64 billion question is who will make the hardware,' Doherty added. Thanks to its use in the DBS field, many vendors have experience with the bandwidth. Since it does not have to survive outer space, MVDDS hardware can be much cheaper than DBS hardware, he noted.
We'll see where this leads.
Lamont Wood