Wireless Spectrum Finder: Telecommunications, Government and Scientific Radio Frequency Allocations in the US 30 MHz - 300 GHz

Today's airwaves are prime real estate for anyone selling telecom services. But the public frequencies are not for sale; they are allocated, licensed and regulated by the FCC. Therefore, if your business offers a service that goes out over the airwaves, you'll need engineers, lawyers, license consultants and developers with expertise in "spectrum planning". Informed spectrum planning is the only way to ensure you'll get access to the bands that transmit what you sell, and to guarantee that products you market will be compatible with technology used by your customers. Despite the fact that spectrum planning is baseline information for today's hottest businesses, it remains an esoteric field. All data are in the public domain and available on the Web, but they are widely scattered, often out of date, sometimes contradictory, and written in Federalese. This book cuts through the confusion and deliberate obfuscation to make spectrum planning a much more intuitive exercise. There are 368 bands in the public spectrum, although not all of them have been commercialized yet. For each band, this reference provides the following hard data: scientific definition; allowable uses; licensees and term of license; and applicable regulations in the US and elsewhere. In addition SpectrumGuide offers interpretive aids for each band covered: footnotes on usage from government, international and other sources; business, legal and technical trends analysis affecting the band; pending legislation and issues before the FCC; effective dates of new legislation; and a policy statement from the trade organization or government agency representing users of the band.

Table of Contents:
Introduction. Three Wireless Trends. Frequency Allocations. VHF(30 MHz-300 MHz). UHF(300 MHz-3000 MHz). SHF(3 GHz-30 GHz). EHF(30 GHz-300 GHz). U.S. and International Footnotes. Subject Index. Band Index.

About the Author :
Bennett Z. Kobb (Washington, D.C.) is a technology writer and consultant. He advises companies on telecommunications policy. As a trade journalist, he covered regulatory affairs at the Federal Communications Commission for more than 15 years. With Apple Computer, he co-founded the Wireless Information Networks Forum.

Review :
By Editor / Issue 1A / June 2001 Wireless Spectrum Finder has come full circle. It was originally published as SpectrumGuide in hardcopy, then published as an electronic book, and has now reverted back to hardcopy, published by McGraw-Hill. I was permitted to see a review copy of SpectrumGuide, and while it was tremendously useful to have the ability to do keyword searches, I like the book format of WIRELESS SPECTRUM FINDER even better than I liked SpectrumGuide. WIRELESS SPECTRUM FINDER is an annotated list of the various spectrum allocations in the U.S. In that role, it's extremely valuable to see Kobb's notes on how a particular chunk of spectrum came into use (and often what use it served prior to being reallocated), how it is encumbered, and what "special features" it has. Kobb basically works his way through the spectrum, and handles what could be a dry and dull job with grace and humor. In the sections of particular interest to me, such as 902 - 928 MHz, 2.4 to 2.485 GHz, etc., Kobb does a very credible job of explaining the varying (and at times conflicting) uses of a particular chunk of spectrum. At one point I offered some feedback that Kobb didn't make particular note of the fact that 2.4 - 2.485 GHz was heavily used by ISP's using Part 15 equipment, and that comment was included in the next issue of SpectrumGuide (and was incorporated into WIRELESS SPECTRUM FINDER). Of particular note is that Kobb maintains an online extra list on his web page, www.spectrumfinder.net. This is particularly welcome for a reference book.