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Early Civil Spread Spectrum History
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Historically the most significant spread spectrum book ever written: A good discussion of spread spectrum technology:
CDMA cellular technology by the pioneer:
In 1980, who would have predicted "Spread Spectrum for Dummies"?
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Above: 1985 FCC decision authorizingcivil use of spread spectrumEarly Civil Spread Spectrum HistoryWi-Fi History and CDMA History
Proceedings of 1991 Quebec conference on whether spread spectrum might have commercial applications The purpose of this page is to share documents and recollections about the early history of civil spread spectrum policy and systems. Today's civil uses include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, CDMA cellular, and 3G cellular systems. However, in the 1970's and early 1980's any civil use seemed doubtful. The above conference proceedings cover shows that as late as 1991 there were questions about its viability in the commercial world.
The 1970's Like computer technology, spread spectrum technology has a long complex history with no clear single "eureka" moment or inventor. The Hedy Lamarr story of invention is charming, has some historic basis, but appears to have been a technological dead end. Military R&D at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Sylvania Electronic Systems, and Magnavox Government and Industrial Electronics for jam-resistant and covert communications systems produced many of the key technical details and early military systems such as the AN/ARC-70 and AN/ARC-90. However, parallel radar technology -- where the concept is called "phase coding" -- also had an impact. But since most early work was classified, the origins were confusing for a long time. The 1976 publication of Spread Spectrum Systems by Robert Dixon was a significant milestone in the commercialization of this technology. Previous publications were either classified military reports or academic papers on narrow subtopics. Dixon's book was the first comprehensive unclassified review of the technology and set the stage for increasing research into commercial applications. I got involved in spread spectrum technology in depth in 1975-79 while working at the Institute for Defense Analyses, a Pentagon think-tank, on options to protect military units from communications jamming. Events in the 1973 Mid East War had raised concern in the US military about this issue - which had been neglected since WWII. The late 1970's were an era of deregulation for the Federal Government. The thinking of Alfred E. Kahn on the benefits of deregulation were influential throughout Washington. FCC Chairman Charles Ferris wanted to decrease the role of FCC and stimulate new services and technologies. He was concerned about promising technologies that were being held back by anachronistic regulation that discouraged their consideration and the capital formation necessary for their further development. Ferris' new technical czar, former (D)ARPA Director Stephen Lukasik, and I met in the summer of 1979 at an Army-sponsored meeting on electronic warfare issues. We had met several years earlier when he was Director of ARPA (now DARPA) and I was a junior Air Force officer spending his money on underground nuclear test detection research. Interested in my thoughts on EW issues, he asked what new technologies should the FCC be thinking about for removing unnecessary barriers. Thinking for a while, I responded: spread spectrum, adaptive antennas, and millimeter waves (frequencies >30 GHz). I soon had my ticket out of the military industrial complex and into FCC. The 1980's Initial commercial use of spread spectrum began in the 1980s in the US with three systems. Each was authorized by FCC based on narrow specific circumstances. Two were satellite systems in which the satellite operator already had effective ownership and management of the frequencies involved. But general spectrum management policies in the US and elsewhere made spread spectrum use in other contexts doubtful and the general technical consensus was that CDMA had inefficient in the real world. The first systems were:
Chairman Ferris approved the spread spectrum intitiative that Dr. Lukasik and I proposed to him. The basic goal was to remove regulatory barriers to spread spectrum and CDMA in order to encourage R&D on practical systems, while maintaining interference protection for conventional users. As specific systems were developed they could be considered on their merits. But if FCC did nothing it was feared that the "regulatory risk" of approaching the FCC "cold" was so great that it discouraged investment and R&D. The first overt FCC action in this direction was a study that FCC contracted with MITRE Corporation to write "POTENTIAL USE OF SPREAD SPECTRUM TECHNIQUES IN NON-GOVERNMENT APPLICATIONS" (MTR80W00335) This report was was released on 12/01/1980. Paper copies can be ordered from NTIS as PB81165284. (Note that documents this old can not be ordered online from NTIS.) Following the MITRE report, FCC staff prepared a Notice of Inquiry under my direction and it was approved on June 30, 1981, initiating Docket 81-413. A parallel proceeding, Docket 81-414, examined spread spectrum in the context of amateur radio.
June 30, 1981 FCC discussion of Notice of Inquiry on spread spectrum technology Click on photo to see video <6.4 MB QuickTime> of actual presentation to FCC. Speakers are: Dr. Stephen Lukasik, FCC Chief Scientist; Dr. Marcus, Chief, Technical Planning Staff; Michael Kennedy, Technical Planning Staff While today's FCC dockets are online and the FCC documents and public comments can be reviewed through the FCC website , documents from this era are only available by special request to the National Archives through FCC. Basically most of the comments were very negative -- foreshadowing what would happen two decades later in the context of ultrawideband (UWB). Part of the NOI was similar to the later idea of UWB "underlays". Regrouping, we drafted a May 21, 1984 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that narrowed the proposals and included the specific context unlicensed use of the 3 ISM bands. A major reason was to give spread spectgrum someplace to start since everywhere else there was a NIMBY problem. (Oddly, the cordless phone industry opposed the proposals fearing that FCC would act on it and ignore their proposal for more spectrum for mediocre FM-based cordless phones at 48 MHz. Ironically, spread spectrum phoes have now mostly replaced 48 MHz phones in the US marketplace.) The world's first general authorization for civil spread spectrum was in the May 1985 in FCC Docket 81-413. This included the rules that Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and the majority of cordless phones sold in the US operate under.
May 9, 1985 FCC discussion of Report & Order on spread spectrum technology - world's first general authorization of civil spread spectrum/CDMA! Click on photo to see video <5.5 MB QuickTime> Presentation by Dr. Marcus followed by Commission discussion and adoption (Note remarks by Chairman Fowler at 3:53 - 4:15 of video.) Report and Order in Docket 81-413 Text: Qualcomm was incorporated a few weeks after this FCC decision. While the decision did not formally affect CDMA for cellular - that would come as part of the deregulation of 2G cellular 3 years later -- the positive statements about CDMA in the decision are said to have helped the capital formation for this technology that is now used in both 2G CDMA cellular and 3G cellular/IMT2000.
FCC new equipment model authorizations of unlicensed spread spectrum equipment models after rules were adopted. (Source: FCC Spectrum Policy Task Force with additional data from FCC Equipment Authorization website) A few of the first few models of spread spectrum equipment authorized under these rules were designed with some rather odd details that lowered their manufacturing cost but eliminated most of all of the processing gain required by the rules. (For example one system used frquency hopping in the transmitter but had a fixed tuned receiver that listened to only one frequency.) Other manufacturers complained to FCC about such systems and pressed for a more detailed definition and measurement of processing gain. I was opposed to such a change and felt that market forces would drive such system out fo the market due to their poor performance. However, I was in "internal exile" at that time due to industry hostility from the 1985 decision and had no impact on the decision taken in Docket 89-354 which began in August 1989 and ended in July 1990. As a result of this proceeding, the original 1985 rules were amended with a new provision, later codified (numbered) as 15.247(e):
It is ironic that this provision - not in the original rules - came close to blocking Wi-Fi's access to market as questions were raised inside and outside FCC about whether the 802.11b waveform actually complied. No one formally opposed approval of the Wi-Fi waveform - not even the HomeRF community that was developing Wi-Fi-like alternative at the time. In what was euphemistically called by a lawyer for one of the parties "an undocketed proceeding", FCC decided not to pursue this issue. The way for Wi-Fi was cleared! A few years later HomeRF asked for a rule change to permit increased data rates and the Wi-Fi community strongly opposed the change at FCC, delaying any action for more than a year. During this period Wi-Fi got a strong market foothold and HomeRF "fell by the wayside".
With Vic Hayes (r), original chair of 802.11, at Mount Vernon after the April 2008 Articles on Early Spread Spectrum Economist article on Wi-Fi history (June 2004)
Presentation on the early history civil spread spectrum at the March 2004 meeting of IEEE 802 in Orlando shortly before retiring from FCC. (1.6 MB .ppt document) The Civil Use of Spread Spectrum and the Success of Wi-Fi, 10th Economics of Infrastructures Conference, TU Delft, Delft, The Netherlands, 5/31/07 (Video of presentation is avilable on website along woith slides.) "Wi-Fi and Bluetooth - The Path from Carter and Reagan-era Faith in Deregulation to Widespread Products Impacting Our World", THE GENESIS OF UNLICENSED WIRELESS POLICY : Introduction by Former FCC Chairman Mark Fowler Favorite Quotes: The Economist, June 12, 2004, p. 26
Presentation by Vic Hayes, Founding Chair of 802.11 at March 2004 meeting of IEEE 802, "Impact of (FCC) Spread Spectrum Rules on the Wireless IEEE 802 standards"
Introductory comments by Former FCC Chairman Mark Fowler at at George Mason University 4/08 conference of Wi-Fi History:
Abelson, Ledeen and Lewis, Blown to Bits: Your Life, Liberty, and Happiness After the Digital Explosion, Addison-Wesley, 2008, p. 286
"Delilah and the Bad Boy" (alternative site), a 1997 folksy article on spread spectrum history, originally drafted for Wired but never actually published - by Tim Barkow. Favorite quote,
Broadband Wireless Internet Access / WiMAX News,11/23/07
(Source: In-Stat, January 2006 with permission)
October 12, 2007, IMS Research reports, "The Bluetooth wireless market has had another astounding year; worldwide Bluetooth-enabled end-equipment shipments are forecast to increase by over 40% from 2006 to 2007, to around 800 million units." Ubiquity of Wi-Fi:
Spread Spectrum Cordless Phones:
Sign at Best Buy explaining available cordless phone types (4/08) It is ironic that the cordless phone industry joined other industries in opposing the Docket 81-413 spread spectrum proposals because they thought spread spectrum cordless phones were impractical and that consideration of even optional use of spread spectrum would divert FCC from granting more spectrum access for low tech cordless phones. Most of the cordless phones sold today are actually spread spectrum! The 47 MHz FM technology they favored at the time is still allowed, but has been largely driven out by marketplace forces. Acknowledgements and thanks to those who worked with me on original spread spectrum rulemaking:
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