Bandwidth and the Negroponte Switch

About 20 years ago Prof Negroponte published his switch concept: simply TV would go from wireless broadcast to fiber and telephony would go from copper wires to wireless. We show the idea above.

But what has happened. Twenty years ago I also proposed in an FCC Pioneer Preference Filing the extensive use of multi beam base station antennas, a technique I had worked on for thirty years by that time. Too early. Marty Cooper also started a company just after that which also was too early.

But what has happened since. The above graphic details some of the issues:

1. QPSK/CDMA led to OFDM, which is why Qualcomm bought Farinon, and we saw BPS/Hz gone from 1 to 10.

2. Video codecs have brought down HDTV from 200 Mbps to 2 Mbps.

3. Multi beam antennas have allowed beam pointing per subscriber.

The result, the number of instantaneous, yes I mean instantaneous, video channels per user can explode. How:

Stick fiber in the backbone and wireless at the edge, all IP. The we have the re-switch as below:

This shows the Negroponte switch goes back on video, namely video for the "last mile" can be all wireless, and yes with the same or even less spectrum.

So why are the incumbent wireless carriers demanding more spectrum? Ever heard of monopoly? And the DoJ/FTC is chasing Google, while the foxes run rampant! Lawyers.