Alliance Corporation Blog

We here at Alliance are excited about the new 70/80 GHz band being opened up for Broadband Wireless here in Canada.

This will create some real opportunities for our customers and their customers to easily set up truly wide-band 1 Gigabit per second data links between locations as far apart as 5km.

Its our hope that Industry Canada will apply a more affordable licensing structure to this band as it doesn’t really fit in with RIC-42 which was created years before the new technology ultra-wideband radios were designed.

We have submitted our thoughts to IC before their deadline of October 21^st and wait with baited breath as to how these new bands will be managed. Below is our response.

Date: October 2011
Attn: Department of Industry Radiocommunications

Response to the above from Alliance Corporation Canada

Gentlepeople,

We welcome the opportunity to share our thoughts on the utilization of these higher-frequency microwave bands. For background, Alliance Corporation is the premier value-added distribution company of broadband wireless apparatus in Canada and has been serving our markets since 1993. We are wholly Canadian owned and have offices in USA and Mexico, and both of these countries already make use of the bands in question for 70/80 GHz broadband wireless apparatus supplied by us.

Summary:

We are of the opinion that fixed point-to-point microwave links in these bands should be licensed on a per-link basis. We also feel that the current RIC-42 fee structure should not be applied to this new spectrum as it will be detrimental to acceptance. We’d like to suggest a yearly license fee more akin to that historically charged for experimental applications in these bands. We’re also in favour of the CEPT Recommended Band Plan with 19 paired channels of 250 MHz each with the option of channel bonding for wider bandwidth radios. If license fees are based on per-channel use, we feel its important to consider that many products make use of 6 of these contiguous channels so reasonable pricing would need to be in place for each frequency pair. In terms of administering the use of this band our preference is for Industry Canada to be involved in a similar, but less stringent, manner than that currently applied to conventional fixed microwave licensing. With respect to the application itself, we’re of the opinion a much lighter approach from that used in RSP-113 would suffice. From a technical perspective we like the rules applied by the FCC for such apparatus with one exception. Their spectral efficiency minimum of 0.125 bits per Hz was born out of a time when the technology on these higher frequency bands was in its infancy. I realize the mild modulation schemes of many of these radio products fall short of the typical 1.0 bit per Hz minimum applied to regular fixed licensed products, but feel 0.5 bits per Hz is a realistic target to ensure efficient use of the new bands when combined with the cost-per-channel model suggested above. We suggest a yearly renewal of licenses to keep it in synch with this aspect of the current RIC-42 model.

Comments:

The products of which Alliance Corporation markets all fall into the terrestrial application range. Hence the only comment we’ll make concerning co-existence with satellites is that it must be considered when deploying new systems. This may be something that in this “lightly licensed” case Industry Canada would be in the best position to manage.

With respect to interference we have a few thoughts born out of much experience with other lightly-licensed & license-exempt bands. Although the likelihood of co-band interference on these frequencies should be appreciably less than those currently covered in RSS-210, we can see the potential for future problems as popularity and typically increasing bandwidth trends occur. Keeping in mind radios typically used in these bands will likely be carrying profoundly more data bandwidth than other wireless systems, it is our thought that any interruption to this kind of link would be potentially catastrophic to the licensee. To this end, in broad terms using a FCFS (first come first served) approach to licenses should be considered the primary means of resolving any conflicts. It is our hope that proper band management would reduce this possibility of occurring. In the event of differing services clashing, the primary band user shall have to prevail.

One item not addressed in the notice is how adherence to Health Canada Safety Code 6 will be handled. Historically for transmitters mounted in such a manner that persons could place themselves in the primary wave-front, appropriate warning signage needed to be installed. We’re of the opinion that any radios installed in these bands should never be installed in this manner and that minimum requirements concerning height above rooftop or edge of roof should be part of a successful application.