I’ve just spent close to a week in a very populated, civilized part of the Northeast (Rhode
Island, to be specific), where the beaches are lovely and where the wireless service just stinks.
If you’ve experienced massive “dead zones,” in otherwise crowded and lovely locales, you know
what I’m talking about. (NB: no one should be surprised that in the Adirondack Mountains, it’s
impossible to get a signal in many places.) But where the population density is great and the
average median income off the charts, this ultimate disconnect is a bit tougher to swallow
(Admittedly, sitting on the beach and not hearing phones ring was delightful, even for a telecom
person). With the recent publicity blitz surrounding the unveiling of Google Voice, it’s time to
reexamine and reevaluate the role of wireless and wireline phones and the respective
infrastructure that supports each.
Wireline telephony is not dead. It’s certainly not a growth business, but it’s not going
away any time soon—or ever. For starters, it’s incredibly reliable (although the design of IP and
cable-based telephony require that both be driven by devices that are connected to a viable
electrical grid which has its own vulnerabilities) and secure. Secondly, if you live or work in a
remote area where cable doesn’t exist, or where wireless is iffy, you know that the landline is
essential. A recent article in a telecom publication by Rick Karpinski in Connected Planet
(see “Is the future of voice everywhere — or nowhere?”, http://connectedplanetonline.com/
commentary/future-of-voice-082710/).570-2393 suggests that the reason people have
abandoned landlines (most notably at home) is financial and not technical. Although I have
used this space ad infinitum to address the issue of E911 limitations with wireless devices, it’s
important to restate that a wireless device may be unable to transmit current and accurate
location information in the event that a call to first responders is made, it bears repeating that
with a traditional landline, first responders are able to identify a caller’s location much more
quickly and accurately than if the same call is made from a wireless device.
Offerings like Google Voice and Skype, for example, have certainly helped to shift a
sizable portion of telephony to the internet, much of which is wireless. Nonetheless, wireless as
a product (as well as a signal) has its strengths and weaknesses—even when a signal is strong,
consistent and available. But I digress.
As individuals and businesses have become increasingly reliant on wireless services,
and increasingly frustrated by its limitations, they have sought out products which offer to
improve signals and boost power. AT&T, for example has started selling its MicroCell,a Ciscomanufactured
device that acts as a personal cell phone tower in homes where coverage is
tolerable on a good day and impossible on a bad one. The cost for these devices (Sprint and
Verizon are each also offering comparable units) is approximately $150, and in some cases
there are additional usage fees.
On the enterprise side, wireless boosters can provide useful coverage when what the
carrier provides isn’t sufficient. However, as wireless boosters have started to appear in the
corporate environment, carriers, and those who are not using such devices have become
increasingly concerned about—and disturbed by—issues of interference. In a multi story
building with limited wireless coverage, a booster can really help the entity that has it, while at
the same time creating additional challenges for those located in the same area (read: a
different floor, for example) whose signals are suddenly noisier and weaker.
In fact, both landlords and carriers have recent started to insert clauses into contracts
that expressly forbid the use of such boosters without provider and/or landlord--permission.
The issue is interference. Which can be a very dicey issue. For all sorts of legal and practical
reasons, landlord should treat tenants equally. If one tenant deploys a device that jeopardizes
(through interference) the operations of another tenant (think noisy neighbor stereo), the second
tenant’s property is less desirable, and it can find itself paying for services which have been
disrupted through no fault of its own, or the carrier itself. For these reasons, it’s very important
before acquiring one of these booster devices to check both the wireless provider contract,
along with the property lease to avoid undue aggravation and expense.
On an interesting side note, there has recently been some attention to paid to the
fact that new buildings that are built to the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental
Design) standards often create challenges (that’s a euphemism for dead spots) for wireless
signals. Specifically, improved insulation and UV filtering windows, which are often part of
green construction, can significantly impede signal strength. This is an issue, most notably
in the new portion of the Engineering Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where
students and faculty struggle to stay connected wirelessly. Given that this is the home of the
University of Colorado’s well-respected graduate program in Telecommunications (of which I
am a graduate), I suspect that a remedy is at hand. Nonetheless, it’s an important consideration
when contemplating costs and advantages to green construction projects.
Wireless telecommunications provides great opportunities to those who the capabilities
that it offers. But it still has major kinks, and only some of these issues have good solutions.
Then there are those others…
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