FCC clears way for wireless Internet

The FCC has freed wireless licensees in the multipoint distribution service and instructional television fixed service portions of the spectrum to become true wireless Internet service providers by giving the green light to two-way service in those frequencies.

ITFS and MDS wireless companies will be able to offer high-speed connections from 256 kb/s to 5 Mb/s, said Jane Zeletes, marketing vice president for modem maker Hybrid Networks. Hybrid has been selling modems with two-way capabilities for more than six months in anticipation of the FCC ruling.

Operators until now have been required to obtain a license to send a signal in the MDS and ITFS bandwidths. As a result, the 250 wireless companies in the U.S. have used those frequencies mostly for wireless TV transmission. Customers who subscribed to wireless Internet access usually used the local telephone loop for return transmissions.

"To broadcast in two-way mode, you had to license each individual subscriber," said Chip Copeland, industry analyst for the Wireless Communications Association International. "That would have been a regulatory nightmare, so it was never done, apart from some experimental licenses."

To transition to two-way wireless, a provider typically will have to modify software at the headend, add an upstream router and install a transceiver on the broadcast antenna. The new rules take a more flexible approach to designing a two-way system by permitting licensees to "subchannelize" their 6 MHz channels for smaller bandwidth uses such as Internet and paging, and to combine multiple channels for larger ones such as data transmission.

Some wireless companies already have announced plans to expand into two-way operation. Baton Rouge, La.-based Internet Media Corp. has been acquiring small ISPs that own licenses for multichannel MDS and selling a low-power spread-spectrum wireless product. The company now plans to offer two-way wireless in about eight states, said President David Loflin.

People's Choice TV Corp. is studying the feasibility of turning its wireless Internet offering SpeedChoice, offered in Phoenix and Detroit, from a hard-wire return to a full wireless return, said Tracy Yaeger, marketing vice president at People's Choice.

The ruling also permits wireless carriers to enter into videoconferencing and IP telephony. "It will be a boon for Internet access, but it also opens another avenue for wireless companies in these frequencies who want to become [competitive local exchange carriers] without getting involved with the incumbent," Copeland said.