So this is the press release. The correction is at the bottom.
ALBUQUERQUE CHOSEN AS FIRST COMMERCIAL U.S. SITE FOR NEW BROADBAND TECHNOLOGY ROLLOUT
Albuquerque is the first U.S. city selected to receive breakthrough, Internet connection technology that promises up to 50Mbs, wireless Internet speeds at very competitive pricing.
The technology is called Multi-Channel Video and Data Distribution Service (MVDDS) and is already operating in the UAE, Ireland, France, Vietnam, Greenland and Serbia.
The technology was developed by Florida based, MDS America. Deploying the technology in New Mexico is Agave Broadband, the exclusive licensee for New Mexico.
“This partnership with MDSA will provide the latest internet, high‐speed connectivity technology to the Albuquerque market and outlying areas,” said Les Matthews, Agave Broadband Director. “This is another step in our long‐term strategy to bring affordable, high‐speed connectivity to both commercial and residential users in Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and in parts of rural New Mexico.”
MVDDS uses patented and patent-pending technology to take advantage of a licensed broadcast spectrum owned by Agave partner, MDS America.
“We’ve successfully deployed this technology in many rural parts of the world,” said Kirk Kirkpatrick, MDS America, President and CEO. “The Albuquerque market provides an excellent opportunity to deploy in a combination of rural/urban markets containing a wide variety of climatic conditions. New Mexico is just the beginning of our roll-out of MVDDS technology into the United States.”
Agave recently acquired Cibola Internet Services, who had begun the preliminary discussions with MDS America. Lou Uttaro, Cibola’s owner, who had for many years been on the forefront of bringing innovative Internet services to New Mexico, will remain involved with Agave in deploying the MVDDS technology in the state.
Agave Broadband currently provides wireless broadband internet service to the East Mountains from Edgewood to Mountainair. The partnership with MDS America will allow expansion of the company’s current service offerings to many population centers in the State of New Mexico.
Now the correction and tech specs:
"I'm not sure I would call this "NEW BROADBAND TECHNOLOGY", 20 some years ago this technology was first developed."
This technology uses the DBS (Direct Broadcast Satellite) frequencies but at a terrestrial level.
It uses spectrum (US / FCC) in the 12.2 - 12.7 Ghz range.
The technology is UNI-DIRECTIONAL, in other words its a SEND TO SUBSCRIBER ONLY technology. [ME: like the original satellite broadband service.] The Internet is a BI-DIRECTIONAL technology, needing traffic in BOTH directions.
The primary use is to deploy multi-channel VIDEO via wireless and thus circumvent existing "Cable TV" franchise rules that municipalities presently have and are required by FCC.
The technology was initially developed in the mid 1980's and was known then as HyperCable.
In 2002, the FCC decided to hold a spectrum auction (Auction 53 and 63) for the land based use of the spectrum. The Albuquerque-Santa Fe market (Market ID MVD049) was granted on 7/26/2004. It EXPIRES on 7/26/2014. There is potential for renewal, if there is substantial service. The licensee has a requirement to provide substantial service within five years of the initial authorization grant. The initial authorization grant was on 7/26/2004. Add five years and you get 7/26/2009. [ME: missed by THAT much. So how come the spectrum didn't revert back to the FCC?]
Permissible Operations: MVDDS licensees may use this spectrum for any digital fixed non-broadcast service (broadcast services are intended for reception of the general public and not on a subscribership basis) including ONE-WAY direct-to-home/office wireless service. Licensees are permitted to provide ONE-WAY video programming and data services on a non-common carrier and/or on a common carrier basis. Mobile and aeronautical services are not authorized. Two-way services may be provided by using other spectrum or media for the return or upstream path.
So the licensee can use the service for ONE-WAY service and MUST NOT provide common carrier services. This could impact "VoIP / Voice" service offerings.
To deploy this technology Agave will need to deploy a DIFFERENT technology to get the packets from the subscriber BACK TO THE INTERNET. [ME: like a telephone modem :)]
This can cause significant problems in actually achieving the bandwidth claimed.
Further, MDS Operations SHALL NOT partition or lease any portion of its license within the prior approval area, including Bernalillo County, Sandoval County. There do not appear to be any FCC approval records filed.
A few technical issues:
1. The licensee is permitted a SINGLE TRANSMITTER located at Sandia Park [35° 13' 01" North Lat. - 106° 27' 08" West Long] Since MDS Operations can only have a SINGLE TRANSMITTER, then is is a SHARED bandwidth system. The more customers they put on the system the less bandwidth will be available for each user.
2. The total amount of bandwidth will also be limited by the amount of bandwidth they can reliably get to the top of Sandia Peak. I do not believe there is FIBER at Sandia Peak. So they will have to use additional wireless technologies to get up to the peak. *** For 100 customers to get the 50Mb/s they will need to have
5000 Mb/s of uplink to Sandia (That's 5 Gbps) *** Unless they oversubscribe the system.
3. There is no "redundancy" in the system. If the single FCC authorized transmitter breaks, then all subscribers are DOWN.
4. Bandwidth will be limited by the latency and reliability of the back-channel technology deployed. Same problem that Satellite based systems have. The latency won't be quite as bad, but that really depends on the back-channel medium they use.
5. I suspect there will be NAT and other network address / routing issues that will cause certain Internet based applications to break or not work very well.
6. Assume they also deploy video on this technology (Video is/was the major driver of this technology), then the aggregate bandwidth available for "Internet" will be significantly less. A single HD video stream requires around 6 to 8 Mb/s, raw. That does NOT include the overhead of IP. So a 100 channel video service all in HD would need around 600 to 800 Mb/s of Bandwidth, in addition to the bandwidth consumed by Internet applications.
END
Peter Radizeski is a telecommunications consultant and analyst with RAD-INFO INC.
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