Junk Journalism at its best

[heroic]

Within a year the switchover from analog to digital tv should be completed. Once all markets are compliant, the FCC will start distribute licenses to the radio bands they previously used.

And all of this is pointless, because why would you make a chipset that works on a frequency only available in the USA when the alternative is to build world standard LTE chipsets that you can sell to the other six billion people on this planet?

Yet again, the FCC's porkbarrel protectionism paints the USA into a technological corner.

[GreatCornholio]

And all of this is pointless, because why would you make a chipset that works on a frequency only available in the USA when the alternative is to build world standard LTE chipsets that you can sell to the other six billion people on this planet?

Yet again, the FCC's porkbarrel protectionism paints the USA into a technological corner.

Well, the fact is that the US has had the frequency band design much longer than other countries and allot followed our design with few exceptions. The WiFi frequencies that are currently used are just what was open for use at the time. If you look into it, the US is not the only country that is thinking digital. Once others convert the market will be wide open. There are some frequencies in the UHF/VHF tv band that could be used in many countries to increase range by ten fold.

M

[heroic]

Well, the fact is that the US has had the frequency band design much longer than other countries and allot followed our design with few exceptions.

The entire world- even Japan- uses UMTS on 2100MHz. Wanna guess what frequency you have to use in the USA? Well, keep guessing, because there are no fewer than five different frequencies involved. It gets even better- they awarded the UMTS2100 "downlink" band to one company and the "uplink" band to a different one! On top of that you've got AT&T inventing their own random standard where it runs down in the old PCS band.

This is why American cellphones suck. This is why good phones take years to come out here, if they do at all. (And no- don't talk to me about the iPhone.)

[allthatwhichis]

I like the Instinct...

[GreatCornholio]

The entire world- even Japan- uses UMTS on 2100MHz. Wanna guess what frequency you have to use in the USA? Well, keep guessing, because there are no fewer than five different frequencies involved. It gets even better- they awarded the UMTS2100 "downlink" band to one company and the "uplink" band to a different one! On top of that you've got AT&T inventing their own random standard where it runs down in the old PCS band.

This is why American cellphones suck. This is why good phones take years to come out here, if they do at all. (And no- don't talk to me about the iPhone.)

Well, that's the thing here. Once this large band is open there will be plenty of room to play around. The Wifi, cell phone and other companies will be able to provide better service and much longer range to many more customers than ever before. One of the reasons Japan first went high on frequencies is that we didn't have the tv bands open at that time. In Japan they actually use these bands for cordless phones too and they have an unbelievable advantage on distance over anything here. When they start selling cordless units here in that range you may see a drop in some cell sales as you can install a small antenna on your roof and get a couple of miles out of them. I know, I have one. PS: before someone starts blowing off, I have a FCC license and I am allowed in these bands.

M

[mixedgas]

But, disregarding international law and the comms act of 32, some greedy lawyers decided spectrum space was something you could auction instead of being the property of the nation, and its gone down hill from there. The UK quickly copied that stratagem, but notice how most of the world did not.

Not to mention the fiascos of moving a lot of fixed microwave users out of the lower bands just because those channels were auctioned off to other uses.

So now all that TV spectrum space is gonna be used to send slow on demand movies at 320 x 640 at very high compression, so the phone companies hope they will have a new revenue stream, in formats that dont work while in motion.

Oh and 8VSB for the new TV was a and is a disaster anyways! 8VSB was picked because it saved power at the broadcast sites. Remember also that once the big switch happens, the stations can send one or two HiDef signals or, as many as 16 or more low def signals, so the bet is that many stations, will migrate off hidef over time in order to send more possible revenue streams over the air. And every time you pop up a new carrier, your overall viewing area goes down.


And sticking HD audio into the FM guard bands using weak spread spectrum made a lot of FM receivers very noisy with spurs, including the 2005 model in my car. Dont get me wrong, HD is great, but why keep the analog when you could have went wholly digital over time by using 216 mhz like the French did.

This is what happens when you stick lawyers into the FCC/NTIA in place of engineers!


Also keep in mind that we in the US are in the REGION II bandplan, and Europe is Region I/ Thus there was a mismatch at the beginning! 2100 mhz was assigned to important fixed point to point links for utilities and broadcast links here, and the NTIA/FCC first reserved it for reassignment to match the rest of the world, then reassigned it to Sprint for megabucks with the deal that Sprint pays the existing users for conversion, a process that is only 80% complete.

So blame capitalistic profit hounds for our misery. Remember, these are the same folks who brought you the idea that local fire and police should now pay a big corporation to run their dispatch at most of the new 700 mhz channels, and not suprisingly, few cities are signing up to pay for something that was and should be free. Fortunately 450 and 150 mhz and 850 MHZ SMR are lousy for cellular and thus public safety dispatch is safe for the time being.

Don't get me started on the FCC abandoning their duties for frequency co-ordination within a assigned band plan to multiple private entities....Who have turned in many cases into for profit entities with constantly rising costs.............

Meanwhile back at the ranch, a lot of the low VHF TV channels will now set vacant , as unused guard bands for about 100-200 TV stations across the country who could not find holes in the new upper band plans.

And you guys thought I just did lasers...

Steve

[Agent C]

No I assumed you did quite a bit of RF work too - how else would you talk to the extra terrestrials. :P

[mixedgas]

No I assumed you did quite a bit of RF work too - how else would you talk to the extra terrestrials. :P

eeee-teee phone home!

Steve

[colouredmirrorball]

It starts dizzling to me

All I learned from this thread is...

DON'T GET INVOLVED IN RADIO FREQUENCES!


But after the analog signal was abandoned in Flanders (not in Wallony for some reason) we watch tv in a much higher quality than that cable users! (only 3 stations, but hey, it moves)