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Radio spectrum management
Book reviews
in the EC. There is little ‘hard data’ on cost comparisons and rate structures available from the service providers. and there is no information on how to deal with the service providers. The overall effect is that of a collection of completed questionnaires of which much of the data would benefit from being summarized in tables. The authors avoid directing analysis to any particular group of readers; consequently there is a lack of focus on specific issues, such as timescaling the investments in multimedia digital network terminal equipment, or the availability of alternative international payment options. Europe may have geographic similarities to the USA, but the regulatory issues are totally different. A key issue for the European reader is the implications of the EC’s attempt to create a regulatory framework for the provision of truly international VPNs.
First reading for radiocommunication RADIO SPECTRUM
MANAGEMENT
What is missing and what would be valuable is a set of tables of key services provided by VPNs (now and in the near future) with their costs and parameters, who to contact and, most importantly, criticisms and qualifications from the users qualified by expert opinions from the authors. By providing such an analysis, the authors would offer the reader help in framing the parameters of his own information requirements. The scope of the report is ambitious and provides a useful base for a continuing watching brief. To get the best from this book, however, a reader would be advised to settle down with a database package and enter the data as he finds them in the report and then maintain the model. Terry Westgate Digital Network Applications Cheltenham, UK
engineers
The radio frequency spectrum and the geostationary orbit are limited resources available to all mankind. In most countries the overall control of these resources is a governmental function in order to ensure that the required national and international services can be provided. Owing to the expansion of radio services and the limited usable spectrum, it is necessary to ensure that the spectrum is used efficiently if all requirements are to be met. This requires an understanding of the engineering and regulatory limitations on radio systems which have been agreed at both the international and national levels and involves the cooperation of engineers, system designers, operators and spectrum managers. The publication of David Withers’ treatise is most timely
in providing excellent coverage of all aspects of spectrum management with the emphasis on engineering considerations. The first four chapters deal with the International Telecommunication Union and its role in spectrum management, frequency allocation and frequency assignment. These are key chapters in understanding the detailed considerations in the remaining 10 chapters which deal with the fixed, broadcasting. mobile, fixed satellite, broadcasting satellite, mobile satellite, amateur, Earth exploration and research, inter-satellite and location services. Each of these chapters covers the regulatory and technical requirements of each service as well as the procedures for registration of assignments with the International Frequency Registration Board and recording in the Master International Frequency Register. Extensive references, mainly to CCIR Reports and Recommendations, are included in each chapter and will be of particular value to the spectrum engineer.
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
January/February
by D.J. Withers Peter Peregrinus, Stevenage, UK, on behalf of the institution of Electrical Engineers, 1991, 523 pp, f59.00
POLICY
1993
Two of the three appendices on Terminology and Radio Propagation are essential to the understanding of frequency management. For the reader unfamiliar with the subject, a brief review of Appendix A will provide a broader understanding of the chapters on the various radio services. The appendix on Radio Propagation and Noise which discusses both ionospheric and tropospheric propagation in some depth is useful for those readers with an engineering background; a summary of the main propagation effects would have been helpful to the non-specialist. One of the difficulties in dealing with such a complex subject as frequency management in a comprehensive manner is ensuring that the text provides up-to-date information if it is to be a useful guide for spectrum managers. New services are continually being introduced, in some cases using new technologies. For example, the Final Acts of the World Administrative Radio Conference (Torremolinos, 1992) made some significant changes to the Table of Frequency Allocations and introduced additional procedures. Provision was made for low-Earth orbit satellite systems using non-geostationary satellite orbits. worldwide public land mobile telecommunication systems and public correspondence with aircraft. The use of new technologies such as highdefinition television (HDTV) and digital audio broadcasting (DAB) (terrestrial and space) was also agreed. These changes to the Radio Regulations will affect both national and international regulation of the radio frequency spectrum and readers should refer to the latest ITU publications for the definitive texts. Similarly, there is already a closer linkage between national and international frequency management, largely through the expansion of space services, and the ITU through the International Frequency Registration Board now publishes the International Frequency List (IFL) on CD-ROM (in addition to microfiche) and the Weekly Information Cirdar on diskette. These new facilities and the associated software provide new tools for national and international management.
87
Book
reviews
Little attention has been given in the book to the IFRB Rules of Procedure and the IFRB Technical Standards. Although these documents are primarily intended for use by the Board, the IFRB is required to circulate these to all members of the Union for comment. For international radio services, these rules and technical standards provide essential guidance on the treatment of assignment notices by the IFRB. One other minor criticism is the need for a discourse on the principles of frequency management, which change more slowly than the changing
technologies. Many of these principles are implicit in the text but are not obvious to uninformed readers. Despite the limited adverse comment, David Withers’ book will be a valuable contribution to all those involved in frequency management and the planning and design of radio systems. It should be a ‘first reading’ for all new radiocommunication engineers. W. H. Bellchambers Chairman, International Frequency Registration Board Geneva, Switzerland
A rich compilation of details ELECTRONIC
BYWAYS
State Policies for Rural Development Through Telecommunications by Edwin B. Parker, Heather E. Hudson, Don A. Dillman, Sharon Strover and Frederick Williams Westvie w Press, Boulder, CO, 1992 Electronic Byways is the second of two books published on the subject of rural telecommunications policy in the USA by the principal two authors, Parker and Hudson, the first being Rural America in the Information Age: Telecommunications Policy for Rural Development, University Press of America, 1989. Both books were prepared for the Rural Economic Policy Program of The Aspen Institute and were funded by a grant from the Ford Foundation to the University of San Francisco where Hudson is located. While Rural America in the Information Age is focused on national telecommunications policy, the authors turn their attention in Electronic Byways to public policies at the state level. Together, these two books and a small number of others recently published on rural telecommunications in the USA have begun to direct worthwhile attention to the increasingly important subject of the role of advanced telecommunications in rural areas. Among the significant effects of this attention is that it helps to raise the
88
important issue of whether ‘development’ is a word we should reserve only for so-called ‘developing countries’, or whether development is an ongoing process throughout the world, including the most technologically advanced countries. Electronic Byways is worthwhile reading for policy makers and analysts, development specialists and others involved in rural American development, and it may be of interest to counterparts in other countries who want to glean ideas and issues that may have broader relevance beyond the varied rural American contexts. The book is full of factual detail, insight into complex political and economic dynamics, and recommendations for policy initiatives at the state level. The book reflects sensitivity to the fact that ‘rural America’ is not a homogeneous entity, but that there are a variety of regional, economic, political and cultural differences, constituting a wide range of needs and interests that are not likely to be satisfied by a single approach to telecommunications modernization. A principal strength of the book lies in its sustained commitment to a vision that rural America must not be left behind by the onward march of the information age. Rural economic development and growth are, in the authors’ view, imperative in order for rural America to compete effectively in the national and global marketplaces. The authors argue that the modernization
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
of rural American telecommunications infrastructure is an urgent matter that can and should be accomplished through public policies that do not burden taxpayers with footing the bill and that simultaneously stimulate attractive new opportunities for telecommunications providers. A fundamental assertion the authors make explicit throughout the book is that their approach is ‘win-win’. not ‘zero sum’. This promise is a difficult one to overlook for those with a vested interest in the economic health of rural America, particularly in the face of rural economic decline and in light of the waning competitiveness of many US industries in the global marketplace. The book begins by documenting that rural poverty and unemployment are lingering problems in the USA. As the widely noted long-term trends in the emergence of ‘post-industrial society’ indicate, the traditional sources of livelihood in rural America that centred around agriculture and natural resource extraction have decreased due in large part to increased mechanization. In the 1970s many rural locales attempted to recover from that decline by competing through lower wages with urban centres as sites for the relocation of manufacturing. but the recession of the early 1980s and the steady export of manufacturing jobs from the USA further dampen the promise of long-term recovery through rural industrialization. Thus, the authors argue, it is time for rural Americans to stop chasing declining economic sectors of urban America but instead join the cutting edge of post-industrial development.
Keys to development In commenting on the present situation in rural telecommunications, the authors argue that rural Americans are often forced to settle for metaphorical ‘dirt roads’ (multiparty rather than single-party service), ‘pothole roads’ (poor quality), ‘winding roads’ (analog rather than digital switching), and even ‘no road’ (no telephone). As a necessary but not sufficient means of achieving longterm recovery and prosperity for rural
POLICY
January/February
1993
in the EC. There is little ‘hard data’ on cost comparisons and rate structures available from the service providers. and there is no information on how to deal with the service providers. The overall effect is that of a collection of completed questionnaires of which much of the data would benefit from being summarized in tables. The authors avoid directing analysis to any particular group of readers; consequently there is a lack of focus on specific issues, such as timescaling the investments in multimedia digital network terminal equipment, or the availability of alternative international payment options. Europe may have geographic similarities to the USA, but the regulatory issues are totally different. A key issue for the European reader is the implications of the EC’s attempt to create a regulatory framework for the provision of truly international VPNs.
First reading for radiocommunication RADIO SPECTRUM
MANAGEMENT
What is missing and what would be valuable is a set of tables of key services provided by VPNs (now and in the near future) with their costs and parameters, who to contact and, most importantly, criticisms and qualifications from the users qualified by expert opinions from the authors. By providing such an analysis, the authors would offer the reader help in framing the parameters of his own information requirements. The scope of the report is ambitious and provides a useful base for a continuing watching brief. To get the best from this book, however, a reader would be advised to settle down with a database package and enter the data as he finds them in the report and then maintain the model. Terry Westgate Digital Network Applications Cheltenham, UK
engineers
The radio frequency spectrum and the geostationary orbit are limited resources available to all mankind. In most countries the overall control of these resources is a governmental function in order to ensure that the required national and international services can be provided. Owing to the expansion of radio services and the limited usable spectrum, it is necessary to ensure that the spectrum is used efficiently if all requirements are to be met. This requires an understanding of the engineering and regulatory limitations on radio systems which have been agreed at both the international and national levels and involves the cooperation of engineers, system designers, operators and spectrum managers. The publication of David Withers’ treatise is most timely
in providing excellent coverage of all aspects of spectrum management with the emphasis on engineering considerations. The first four chapters deal with the International Telecommunication Union and its role in spectrum management, frequency allocation and frequency assignment. These are key chapters in understanding the detailed considerations in the remaining 10 chapters which deal with the fixed, broadcasting. mobile, fixed satellite, broadcasting satellite, mobile satellite, amateur, Earth exploration and research, inter-satellite and location services. Each of these chapters covers the regulatory and technical requirements of each service as well as the procedures for registration of assignments with the International Frequency Registration Board and recording in the Master International Frequency Register. Extensive references, mainly to CCIR Reports and Recommendations, are included in each chapter and will be of particular value to the spectrum engineer.
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
January/February
by D.J. Withers Peter Peregrinus, Stevenage, UK, on behalf of the institution of Electrical Engineers, 1991, 523 pp, f59.00
POLICY
1993
Two of the three appendices on Terminology and Radio Propagation are essential to the understanding of frequency management. For the reader unfamiliar with the subject, a brief review of Appendix A will provide a broader understanding of the chapters on the various radio services. The appendix on Radio Propagation and Noise which discusses both ionospheric and tropospheric propagation in some depth is useful for those readers with an engineering background; a summary of the main propagation effects would have been helpful to the non-specialist. One of the difficulties in dealing with such a complex subject as frequency management in a comprehensive manner is ensuring that the text provides up-to-date information if it is to be a useful guide for spectrum managers. New services are continually being introduced, in some cases using new technologies. For example, the Final Acts of the World Administrative Radio Conference (Torremolinos, 1992) made some significant changes to the Table of Frequency Allocations and introduced additional procedures. Provision was made for low-Earth orbit satellite systems using non-geostationary satellite orbits. worldwide public land mobile telecommunication systems and public correspondence with aircraft. The use of new technologies such as highdefinition television (HDTV) and digital audio broadcasting (DAB) (terrestrial and space) was also agreed. These changes to the Radio Regulations will affect both national and international regulation of the radio frequency spectrum and readers should refer to the latest ITU publications for the definitive texts. Similarly, there is already a closer linkage between national and international frequency management, largely through the expansion of space services, and the ITU through the International Frequency Registration Board now publishes the International Frequency List (IFL) on CD-ROM (in addition to microfiche) and the Weekly Information Cirdar on diskette. These new facilities and the associated software provide new tools for national and international management.
87
Book
reviews
Little attention has been given in the book to the IFRB Rules of Procedure and the IFRB Technical Standards. Although these documents are primarily intended for use by the Board, the IFRB is required to circulate these to all members of the Union for comment. For international radio services, these rules and technical standards provide essential guidance on the treatment of assignment notices by the IFRB. One other minor criticism is the need for a discourse on the principles of frequency management, which change more slowly than the changing
technologies. Many of these principles are implicit in the text but are not obvious to uninformed readers. Despite the limited adverse comment, David Withers’ book will be a valuable contribution to all those involved in frequency management and the planning and design of radio systems. It should be a ‘first reading’ for all new radiocommunication engineers. W. H. Bellchambers Chairman, International Frequency Registration Board Geneva, Switzerland
A rich compilation of details ELECTRONIC
BYWAYS
State Policies for Rural Development Through Telecommunications by Edwin B. Parker, Heather E. Hudson, Don A. Dillman, Sharon Strover and Frederick Williams Westvie w Press, Boulder, CO, 1992 Electronic Byways is the second of two books published on the subject of rural telecommunications policy in the USA by the principal two authors, Parker and Hudson, the first being Rural America in the Information Age: Telecommunications Policy for Rural Development, University Press of America, 1989. Both books were prepared for the Rural Economic Policy Program of The Aspen Institute and were funded by a grant from the Ford Foundation to the University of San Francisco where Hudson is located. While Rural America in the Information Age is focused on national telecommunications policy, the authors turn their attention in Electronic Byways to public policies at the state level. Together, these two books and a small number of others recently published on rural telecommunications in the USA have begun to direct worthwhile attention to the increasingly important subject of the role of advanced telecommunications in rural areas. Among the significant effects of this attention is that it helps to raise the
88
important issue of whether ‘development’ is a word we should reserve only for so-called ‘developing countries’, or whether development is an ongoing process throughout the world, including the most technologically advanced countries. Electronic Byways is worthwhile reading for policy makers and analysts, development specialists and others involved in rural American development, and it may be of interest to counterparts in other countries who want to glean ideas and issues that may have broader relevance beyond the varied rural American contexts. The book is full of factual detail, insight into complex political and economic dynamics, and recommendations for policy initiatives at the state level. The book reflects sensitivity to the fact that ‘rural America’ is not a homogeneous entity, but that there are a variety of regional, economic, political and cultural differences, constituting a wide range of needs and interests that are not likely to be satisfied by a single approach to telecommunications modernization. A principal strength of the book lies in its sustained commitment to a vision that rural America must not be left behind by the onward march of the information age. Rural economic development and growth are, in the authors’ view, imperative in order for rural America to compete effectively in the national and global marketplaces. The authors argue that the modernization
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
of rural American telecommunications infrastructure is an urgent matter that can and should be accomplished through public policies that do not burden taxpayers with footing the bill and that simultaneously stimulate attractive new opportunities for telecommunications providers. A fundamental assertion the authors make explicit throughout the book is that their approach is ‘win-win’. not ‘zero sum’. This promise is a difficult one to overlook for those with a vested interest in the economic health of rural America, particularly in the face of rural economic decline and in light of the waning competitiveness of many US industries in the global marketplace. The book begins by documenting that rural poverty and unemployment are lingering problems in the USA. As the widely noted long-term trends in the emergence of ‘post-industrial society’ indicate, the traditional sources of livelihood in rural America that centred around agriculture and natural resource extraction have decreased due in large part to increased mechanization. In the 1970s many rural locales attempted to recover from that decline by competing through lower wages with urban centres as sites for the relocation of manufacturing. but the recession of the early 1980s and the steady export of manufacturing jobs from the USA further dampen the promise of long-term recovery through rural industrialization. Thus, the authors argue, it is time for rural Americans to stop chasing declining economic sectors of urban America but instead join the cutting edge of post-industrial development.
Keys to development In commenting on the present situation in rural telecommunications, the authors argue that rural Americans are often forced to settle for metaphorical ‘dirt roads’ (multiparty rather than single-party service), ‘pothole roads’ (poor quality), ‘winding roads’ (analog rather than digital switching), and even ‘no road’ (no telephone). As a necessary but not sufficient means of achieving longterm recovery and prosperity for rural
POLICY
January/February
1993