Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Spectrum can be re-allocated.

Regardless, the first of his two points still applies:

> More cell towers



The spectrum is highly limited, irrelevant of (re)allocation.

In layman terms, better allocating the air around you will not create more air.


Can you stop with this "in layman terms"?

Let's just take a look at radio spectrum in US [1].

Right now you are trying to say, that everything there is completely saturated 100% of the time? That is simply false.

[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/df/United_S...


I already know that diagram, that's my job.

Yes, the usable frequencies are saturated.


Define "usable frequencies". You are making pretty ridiculous sounding claims btw. I would rather believe that we can max out cell tower wired connection bandwidth, than completely saturate radio frequencies. Obvious solution, as non-professional, is to use more towers/higher frequencies. Give more information, if you want people to believe you. Go technical and say how things really are, no need for that "layman" stuff.


Being generous, there is only the spectrum around 100 MHz to 10 GHz that's usable.

In layman terms, 1 MHz allow for about 1 Mbps. That's all the bandwidth you can get.

Wired connection bandwidth is trivial, any optic fiber will give a dependable gigabit link. A tower is already equipped with 3 to 12 radio stations.

While we are talking about telecommunications, I wrote that last week: https://thehftguy.com/2017/07/19/what-does-it-really-take-to... Would you like me to write a similar technical article to explain why there won't be more bandwidth?


The smaller the transmission radius, the more bandwidth available to the users of a tower.


So 1 bit per Hz? What about amplitude modulation? And shouldn't higher frequencies give you proportionally higher bandwidth then?

Yeah, I guess article would be better than trying to explain everything in comments.


Modulation is already taken into account when talking about channel capacity. If you don't have any kind of modulation you essentially just have a sine wave and can't transmit any data.

The number of bits per hertz is bounded by the amount of noise in the signal. There are natural sources of noise, so a noise free channel is impossible. The mathematical basis for this is the Shannon Hartley theorem if you're up for some reading.

Higher frequencies don't provide more bandwidth. It's the width of the channel that matters. A 20mhz channel provides the same bandwidth regardless of whether its centered at 100mhz or 900mhz. The main difference is the 900mhz signal won't travel through solid objects as well.

People sometimes turn to higher frequencies for more bandwifth simply because there's more spectrum available because it's far less useful. For instance, cell towers sometimes communicate with other cell towers using frequencies around 60ghz. The downside is you need direct line of sight on frequencies that high, so it works for tower to tower, but not tower to phone.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: