Apple Wants Wireless For Everyone

Educators' hopes of using wireless computer networks to transfer data among schools received a boost this spring, when Apple Computer petitioned the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to free up a large chunk of the radio spectrum for wireless transmissions. The proposed high-speed radio service would be accessible by equipment from any supplier and available to anyone--schools, businesses, and individuals--without licensing or air-time charges, Apple says.

Earlier in the year, the FCC granted Apple's request to allocate frequencies for unlicensed wireless data personal communications services (Data-PCS). Data-PCS allows wireless devices to communicate at relatively high data rates within a local area, such as throughout a school.

The newest proposed radio-wave spectrum, which Apple has dubbed the National Information Infrastructure (NII) Band, would permit even faster data rates and allow users, for the first time, to set up their own wide-band wireless data links spanning 10 or 15 kilometers. Rapid transmission of video and Internet access would be possible.

Apple promises the NII Band will be a "breakthrough" that schools would find especially useful for older buildings, where high costs or asbestos risks preclude drilling through walls to install wiring. Nonetheless, FCC approval might take more than three years, say industry observers. Apple spokeswoman Pam Miracle says the approval period is "impossible to state" but notes that the company filed its FCC petition for the Data-PCS five years ago. "However, the FCC is getting a lot speedier," Miracle says.

Unfortunately, you might have to wait much longer than that. "It's nothing [that is] around the corner," says Kimball Brown, an industry analyst at Dataquest Inc., in San Jose. Brown says FCC approval is only the first hurdle, and probably not the highest one, because the service will require vast investments in "extremely expensive infrastructure" such as high-performance wireless modems. He adds, "With a new spectrum, you need a new set of radios -- where's the market to pay for it?"

Brown doubts whether companies have much incentive to invest in an unlicensed spectrum that could be available to users without paying a monthly fee or usage charge. In addition, FCC rules would require compensation paid to current users of the bandwidth allocated to the NII Band. "You have to pay them to move" to another bandwidth and then pay for the costs of moving them, Brown says. "Nobody's going to put up the money." Especially not Apple, Brown suggests: "Their motivation is to provide wireless to schools so they can sell more computers. They aren't going to pay for the infrastructure."

Such predictions might come as a disappointment to educators like Harvey Barnett, director of instructional technology in the Cupertino Union School District, in Apple Computer headquarter's backyard.

Barnett is experimenting with using a wireless service to access district local-area and wide-area networks but complains that the system is hard to configure, finicky, and expensive. "It works real well if you're not in a metal building" but "troubleshooting is a problem -- like for a cellular phone." The cost of wireless service is $40 monthly for one wireless modem, plus the cost of the modem, Barnett says.

To be practical in schools, wireless "has got to be plug and play, and easy to use, and cost-effective," Barnett says. He adds that it also must work as well with school networks as wired systems do.

Barnett has seen prototypes of new wireless equipment "in nondisclosure" meetings and says it will be an important convenience for the future. "We're moving more and more to portable computing -- powerbooks and personal digital assistants -- and it's silly to have to hook them up to printers" whenever you move them.

But he doubts educators will ever be free from monthly service fees for telecommunications: "You get nothing for nothing," Barnett says.