FCC opens 95GHz to 3THz spectrum for 6G, 7G now, or whatever is next like UVGi-Fi pandemic countermeasures
Far UV must be harnessed as a common utility for humanity. IoT connectivity with Far UV light bands must become the new dedicated unlicensed band of the electromagnetic spectrum for wireless data and telecommunications.
To accomplish this combination of data transmission and sanitization, hardware is required. Specifically, in the preferred embodiment, the light source is a solid-state, Far-UV light-emitting diode (LED) to emit Far-UV light encoded with data.
A system for wireless communication while sterilizing air, the system using transmitting hardware to encode data within emitted light, the emitted light having wavelengths within a band of Far-UV light that peaks in the lower 2/3rds (shorter wavelengths) of the Far-UV sanitizing communications spectrum between 207nm to 230 nm, the light is unable to penetrate to the nucleus of living human skin cells and thus safe for human exposure up to thresholds that are beyond effective for inactivating viruses and transmitting wireless data. Therefore, applying Far UV light to IoT communications in occupied spaces can effectively help reduce viral aerosols.
As stated above, ” safe for human exposure up to thresholds,” so time to limits values are still a thing.
No different than SAR levels when using the RF spectrum for communications.
The light-based communications industry using germicidal light frequencies will also have regulatory guidance for Time to Limit Values.
It is safe to assume new time limit values will be established as research fine-tunes the safest possible frequency window for UVGi-Fi. However, far UV irradiation must never exceed regulatory guidelines for UVC exposure regarding eye and skin safety.
Far UV is effective for inactivating viruses and transmitting wireless data while remaining below these thresholds. The thresholds still exist. What we can do within them has changed.
Commercial 5G networks are barely operational in the United States right now, but that hasn’t stopped engineers from thinking ahead to 6G — and the U.S. government wants to facilitate their experiments over the next decade. After a unanimous vote, the FCC is opening the “terahertz wave” spectrum for experimental purposes, creating legal ways for companies to test and sell post-5G wireless equipment.
The FCC’s Spectrum Horizons First Report and Order deals specifically with the 95 gigahertz (GHz) to 3 terahertz (THz) range — a collection of frequencies that aren’t currently being used in consumer devices and have wide bandwidth with vast potential for data streaming. In addition to issuing 10-year licenses to experiment in that range, the FCC will offer a full 21.2GHz of spectrum for testing of unlicensed devices.
Collectively, that 95GHz to 3THz spectrum extends a little beyond the 300GHz to 3THz range defined as “tremendously high frequency.” At the lower end of the FCC’s range, 95GHz to 300GHz signals are technically still millimeter waves, as they’re at or over 1 millimeter in wavelength. But 300GHz to 3THz signals are at or under 1 millimeter in wavelength, and for that reason called “submillimeter waves.”
Even by comparison with the 24GHz to 28GHz millimeter wave spectrum that’s currently being auctioned off by the FCC, the terahertz spectrum is considered bleeding-edge enough to be nearly science fiction. FCC Commissioner Michael O’Reilly said the nascence of terahertz technology made the vote felt “like designating zoning laws for the moon,” and noted his hesitance to “create a class of incumbents, who then have to be moved or protected in the future when this spectrum becomes of greater interest for 6G, 7G, or whatever the next-next-generation wonder technology may be.”
But other commissioners, including Jessica Rosenworcel, were largely optimistic on the plans for the spectrum. “There is something undeniably cool about putting these stratospheric frequencies to use and converting their propagation challenges into opportunity,” she said. “This rulemaking gets that effort underway, so it has my support.”
The “propagation challenges” she references are non-trivial. Like millimeter waves, submillimeter waves face issues such as limited transmitting distances and an inability to penetrate buildings. However, NYU Wireless Professor Ted Rappaport (via FierceWireless) said that the higher-frequency signals would perform better with directional antennas and claimed that with the new spectrum,
you can start having data rates that approach the bandwidth needed to provide wireless cognition, where the computations of the human brain at those data rates could actually be sent on the fly over wireless. As such, you could have drones or robotics receive in real time the kind of perception and cognition that the human brain could do.
Actual applications of the technology are yet to be demonstrated, and in most cases, even imagined. But the dreaming of what’s to come after 5G has already begun. Keysight made a sizable donation to NYU last October to spur 6G development. Later this month, scientists and engineers will gather in Oulu, Finland, for a 6G Wireless Summit in hopes of further defining what the standard could look like — when it comes together in or around the year 2030. Thanks to the FCC’s vote, it seems like the United States is ready to welcome the next generation of wireless experiments with open arms.
