40 companies form WINForum to help push the petition

Apple Computer celebrated the culmination of a two-year effort recently when the Federal Communication Commission officially proposed that a portion of very scarce radio spectrum in the U.S. — today occupied by public utilities and railroad communications — be allocated to emerging technology services. As part of this new Emerging Technology band, it was proposed that 20 MHz be allocated specifically for “user provided,” unlicensed personal communications services, or PCS, technologies.

Although the process was put in motion by Apple’s Advanced Technology Group (ATG) in August, 1990, it quickly became obvious that there was much to be gained by joining forces with other companies. What started as informal consultations between a small number of companies interested in gaining access to radio spectrum, became a formal, 40-member organization called the Wireless Information Networks Forum, or WINForum.

A high stakes game. The stakes in wireless networking are huge. Almost every computer and communications entity is working on portable devices. According to Apple’s Dick Allen, manager of communications technology for ATG, portable computers will make up half of all of the computers sold by 1995.

In addition, cellular telephone sales have increased an amazing 1,600 percent during a six-year period, to eight million users in the U.S. alone. Obviously, Apple’s Newton technology and product line (and its success or failure) will be extremely dependent upon its communications capabilities.

“The promise [of portable computers, personal communications and personal digital assistants] cannot be realized if you have to connect to wires everywhere you go,” said Benn Kobb, president of WINForum, based in Washington, DC.

There are a number of different personal communications services being analyzed by the FCC, including both licensed and nonlicensed wireless systems. Each is being considered separately.

Licensed or carrier-provided services will be operated by a communications entity like a cellular phone system, and will work over large geographic areas. Like any telephone network, the user is charged for using the system. Although still a form of PCS and still in the Emerging Technology band, the difference is that the party who’s being paid for access to the network will hold a rare license from the FCC to charge for these services.

EMBROILED IN SPECTRUM POLITICS

Licensed or no, all PCS vendors are embroiled in the politics of radio spectrum allocation. To make room in the Emerging Technology spectrum, the FCC is moving out railroad and utility companies, which aren’t very happy about it.

Though carrier PCS may be able to share the frequencies with utility and railroad microwave systems, at least for a while, Kobb says that unlicensed PCS requires clear spectrum. “We’re talking about millions of user PCS devices of many kinds,” says Kobb. “We can’t risk interfering with railroad and utility communications.”

The FCC is watching to see how the transition is handled before it actually finalizes the Emerging Technology allocation, so WINForum participants are moving gingerly to help the incumbents move out of the Emerging Technology band. “The bottom line,” says Kobb, “is that the existing users should not suffer hardships and their needs should continue to be served, even though there are new users in the spectrum.”

Wireless LAN extension. User supported or nonlicensed personal communications networks are envisioned as an extension to a university or office wired computer network; there is no fee for logging on to the system and, with the proper identification, the user can communicate with other users or access and download data over that network. The user will not be tied down to a specific node on the network, but can log on from anywhere on the campus or office building — a classroom, a warehouse, or even a lawn. An office meeting might take place with coworkers at a table exchanging documents between portable computers without a single wire attaching them. An intelligent network could even “recognize” the user as soon as his or her device is within detection range.

The range for wireless LAN networks is quite small compared to cellular telephone networks, or even licensed PCS. User-supported wireless networks make trade-offs that optimize such a system for campus or single building-size applications. For one thing, each cell or reception area is only about 50 meters in diameter. However, it can support extremely fast data transfer rates: up to Ethernet speeds of 10 megabits per second. By comparison, most advanced phone services offer transfer rates of only 32 kilobits per second.

In a nonlicensed network, the user or network operator either provides or recommends the hardware for the system, and access would be limited by password to a single company or organization. Thus, unlike a public network, only those devices that match the specifications of a particular network would be able to connect. The wireless LAN can, however, connect to a public network, like the phone system, to allow dial-up access to other services.

Apple’s Data-PCS. Apple developed its Data-PCS proposal for submittal to the FCC in 1991. Data-PCS primarily will handle “bursty” data, or chunks of information that do not clog up network lines or airwaves for long periods of time. However, as in a traditional wired network, Data-PCS will ultimately be able to deliver streaming data, like music or video, for media-intensive applications.

“We simply asked the FCC to give us [WINForum] the spectrum with rules that were flexible enough that the technology wouldn’t be inhibited,” says Allen. Those rules included limits on transmission power and transmission time (i.e., the aforementioned “bursty” data), as well as one that requires a device to “listen” to the network before transmitting to make sure a frequency was unoccupied. The primary concern, according to Allen, was that early spectrum users don’t hog the network in any way.

In these situations, the usual procedure is that if the FCC grants the request for spectrum, then it asks the industry to propose more specific guidelines and rules governing the use of the spectrum. WINForum’s technical committee is now in the process of doing just that.

Apple’s internal efforts to develop communications technologies for personal networks are distinct from its work with WINForum, which was designed primarily to focus the FCC lobbying efforts of the participating companies. The WINForum charter, according to Kobb, is to “promote the right business, legislative and regulatory environment for nonlicensed, user-provided wireless voice and data communications.”

Sticky issues. There is still plenty of work to be done. Just because the FCC allocated the spectrum to user-supported PCS doesn’t mean that these networks will be in place tomorrow. In fact, the FCC will not apply the allocation until many sticky issues are resolved, such as what will happen to the aforementioned organizations that now use that spectrum. They are loathe to give up what they have. And while the new PCS allocation will force them to relocate, their demands for new bandwidth must also be accommodated.

The actual allocation of spectrum probably won’t happen until some time in 1993 at the earliest. These are private networks, however, meaning the speed with which services can be put into place is relatively quick, because the FCC and the user of the spectrum do not have to worry about local common-carrier regulations and monopolies.

In addition to finding a new home for the spectrum’s occupants, the FCC will be determining how the 20 MHz is divided. Differences of opinion remain about how to resolve the issue of “channelization,” or how to split the spectrum. Some are advocating four 5-MHz channels, while others suggest that since voice communications don’t need that much bandwidth, the 20-MHz spectrum should be divided up among high, medium- and low-speed services.

A who’s who. There are 40 WINForum participants, and while not all actively worked on the FCC petition process, they added weight and direction to WINForum’s actions. Formal members include Apple and Hewlett-Packard (both cofounders), AT&T/NCR, Bell Communications Research, Cabletron Systems, Digital Equipment Corp., Ericsson Business Communications, Farallon Computing, Tandy/Grid, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Motorola, National Semiconductor, Rockwell International, Rolm, Sun Microsystems and Tandem. “It’s remarkable what this industry can do when it gets together,” says David Nagel, head of Apple ATG.

The WINForum participants were disappointed, however, in the amount of spectrum that’s been proposed by the FCC. So many different kinds of devices, applications and organizations want to make use of user-supported PCS services that Kobb doubts that 20 MHz will be sufficient.

All WINForum participants claim to be developing either personal devices or communication technology for personal digital assistants. Many of them are already working together on products and services. In addition, the Europeans have allocated far more spectrum than the FCC to similar services. But the wording in the FCC decision, which left open the possibility that more bandwidth would be allocated at a later date, has so far alleviated some of those fears.

David Baron, Denise Caruso