Selected Daily Notes Archive (Home Page has current notes)

Oldest (Page 1) to most new (Page 52)

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12) (13) (14) (15) (16) (17) (18) (19) (20) (21) (22) (23) (24) (25) (26) (27) (28) (29) (30) (31) (32) (33) (34) (35) (36) (37) (38) (39) (40) (41) (42) (43)(44) (45)(46) (47) (48) (49) (50) (51) (52)

August 3, 2004

Q. What's 3G (internal link) and where is it in the U.S.?

A. Third generation cellular radio promises high data rates, compatibility with different mobile terminals, not just phones, and packet switching (internal link), what the internet uses to work.

First generation commercial systems, a hybrid of analog and digital, started in 1985, full digital or second generation systems began in 1992, [internal link to history] and 3G, well, who knows? Right now we're in 2.5G land, with fancy phones and features waiting for faster data transfer speeds to bring us 3G. Hold on to your picture phone with color display. This may take a while.

The ITU (external link) in 2000 listed clear goals for 3G. Given America's topography and the economics of cellular, it may not be possible to provide 3G unless definitions are changed. Installing the infrastructure to cover large areas in the United States may be cost prohibitive. A single cell site costs between half a million and one million dollars. 3G can be put in Denver and its suburbs, but can customers afford the number of sites required? Carriers certainly can't equip any area beyond major cities; there will be no demand in Billings, Montana for a system priced at what it actually costs.

Carriers will need years to economically install enough cell sites and radio gear to handle the transition to 3G. Even after that time I doubt the original goals can be met. Do we really think a car moving at 60 miles an hour around Dallas can maintain a reliable wireless connection at 144 Kbs? When voice calls are now routinely dropped in that same car?

Will people pay an extremely high price for such spotty service? When they are mad about dropped calls now? Especially when technology doesn't help with recovery? If I am downloading a file and the connection breaks I want that file transfer to resume once I'm back on-line. Simple things like that aren't happening now but should be planned for in the future.

One last point. Mobility and high data rates are key. Without these two we don't have 3G. It doesn't matter if some of 3G's goals aren't met, these two have to work. We're not building fixed wireless here, WiFi or some other scheme can do that. What we want is the same as with voice, seamless transfers between cell sites at speed. Anything else is no big whoop.

August 2, 2004

Revised the cell site lease sales page this morning (internal link). Okay, okay, it only applies to two or three of you. But it's important. Perhaps tommorow I can feature something of more general interest.

August 1, 2004

I'm building a garden bench today, telecom Monday. I'm also reading Dos Passo's Nineteen Nineteen, people behaving badly during World War I, the second novel in his U.S.A. trilogy. Disagreeable characters but extraordinarily descriptive, well moving writing. He lapses into stream of consciousness now and then:

Pushkin for de Musset; St. Petersburg was a young dude's romance:

goldencrested spires under a platinum sky,

the icegray Neva flowing swift and deep under bridges that jingled with sleighbells;

riding home from the Islands with the Grand Duke's mistress, the most beautiful most amorous singer of Neapolitan street songs;

staking a pile of rubles in a tall room glittering with chandeliers, monocles, diamonds dripped on white shoulders;

white snow, white tablecloths, white sheets,

Kakhetian wine, vodka fresh as new mown hay, Astrakhan caviar, sturgeon, Finnish salmon, Lapland ptarmigan, and the most beautiful women in the world.

Natasha. From guess where?

July 29, 2004

Will VOIP become successful despite the problems listed below? Of course. Most people aren't concerned about voice quality, 911 availability, and backup power requirements when choosing a phone or calling plan. People will be happy with mediocre connections as long as they can communicate. J.R. Snyder (internal link) points out early telephone users put up with worse: calls going out when it rained, party lines (internal link) where only one person out of perhaps 12 could make a call at a time, and noise so bad that you could barely hear. But do we have to go backwards? Isn't technology advancing? It is. To more efficiently make and process calls that sound bad, that can't be located, and die when the power dies. :-) Telecom doesn't always move forward in the direction we want. I'll give a negative example from the past and then mention a positive development for the future.

Cellular callers often sound like Donald Duck in a tin can because carriers went digital to increase their network capacity. They'd run out of spectrum and needed to carry more calls using the same frequencies. Digital by itself does not decrease bandwidth, actually it increases it (internal link), but you gain channel capacity when you tightly compress and multiplex those calls. Now you have three calls on every frequency and, well, quack, quack, quack. Since digital signals don't go as far as analog and aren't as robust, coverage suffered as well. More dropped calls, more clipped conversations. But high capacity cellular systems could not exist today unless they were digital. The old analog networks couldn't meet demand and there isn't any way they could have paid for themselves with those comparatively few callers. There's the rub. We advance, we go backwards. Speaking of advance, have you heard of Skype?

Skype.com (external link) offers VOIP without a switch. It cuts out this formerly necessary component, needed almost since telephony began, by using peer to peer networking. PCs talking to other PCs, using PCs to connect. Very clever. They claim better audio quality than landline telephones. How? Since they base their network on DSL anchored PCs they'd have 128kbs paths to put voice on. Landline telephone circuits by comparison are allocated 64kbs. As long as the call is PC to PC it should sound good. But as soon as the call hits the Public Switched Telephone Network then quality will start to fall apart. Still, that's beyond their control, they have a good idea, and a method using a higher standard than, "Well, what can we get away with?"

Tomorrow: more VOIP rambling and the regulatory issues that threaten it.

July 28, 2004

Many wireless phone problems now come to wired telephones, thanks to voice over internet protocol or VOIP. Digital cellular telephones provide more features than analog models but deliver poorer audio quality and suffer more dropped calls. VOIP features seem endless, would you like a real time transcript of your call appearing on a web page?, but its packet switching means echoes, delays, and poor quality sound. Locating any cell phone caller's position in an emergency is difficult, same now with VOIP landline telephones. A cell site might go dead after a few hours from a blackout, making your mobile useless. Same thing with your internet phone unless you provide backup power to your computer and cable modem. What does this all mean?

We now treat our communication systems as works in progress, adjusting and fine tuning them as we go, instead of presenting them to customers as mature technologies. I'm not criticizing this approach necessarily, it may now be the only way to advance the art, but we are approaching a safety and quality limit. Imagine this din and confusion: A pre-paid cellular call using highly compressed voice placed to an internet phone that is also a cordless. Or witness the future now, call a mobile user in Beirut with a cheap pre-paid phone card. You can hardly communicate. Is this the audio and connectivity quality we want? Is it safe? Despite technology steadily advancing will voice end up sounding like bad CB radio? And reliability as certain? More tomorrow, but for background, in you're interested, read my dated but still serviceable article on circuit and packet switching. (internal link).

July 27, 2004

The days of the wireless crank aren't over. There's a company called Gaiacomm International that is positively whacky. It's New Age thinking for radio. At least their material is pHun to read. But investors beware:

"Our goal is to have data rates up to 100 Tbps, tera-bits-per-sec. New design techniques, however, are needed to make this happen at our desired target of one-tenth the cost of 3G. The move to GWC is complicated by attempts to standardize on a single 3G protocol. Without a single standard on which to build, designers face significant additional challenges. We will define a new 4G protocol thus removing any challenge or debate."

100 terabytes a second, eh? And they will define a standard by themselves for everyone else? Right.

"GWC is intended to provide high speed; high capacity, low cost per bit, IP based services, fiberoptic wireless connection and a truly global wireless communications system operating in frequency ranges that surpass all other telecommunication companies on planet earth."

Nice claim. Prove it.

"[Our technology] will allow enlightened minds to devote themselves into other areas of intellectual and technical enquiry. By encouraging a transparent exchange of information, peace and goodwill will undoubtedly be fostered."

I feel better already. But wait! There's more!:

"We could install our imaging technology at any port where cargo shipments from terrorists could be a problem, combine it with fail-safe detection software and within 90 seconds, scan over ten thousand parcels in an area the size of a football field and identify every weapon of mass destruction, terrorist device and pathogen known to the software."

And this bit of ego and insanity sums it up:

"Gaiacomm International Corporation has developed and refined a communications system that is virtually wireless on all fronts. By using the natural frequencies generated by the Earth and other bodies, Gaiacomm determined that it is scientifically possible globally to transmit a signal of any strength to all parts of the planet up to and including inner space and outer space. In all respects, this means that a form of sub-space communications has been discovered using the governing dynamics existing in the electromagnetic spectrum that radiates globally and interstellar in all forms, including the sought after 'Dark Matter' radiation."

Sheesh. Although Tesla made some outrageous claims he was a brilliant engineer with solid achievements, especially in power generation. You can't entirely ignore someone like that. Same way with Arraycomm.com. You wouldn't spend time considering their original inflated capacity claims except that Martin Cooper is on their team. So, you have to look at their technology. But Gaiacomm? Well, at least they're entertaining.

July 26, 2004

What did I do today? On the hottest day this summer I hiked around Mount Diablo near the San Francisco Bay Area. 4,000 feet of elevation gain over 15 miles. A friend is getting ready to climb Mount Whitney so a small group of us accompanied him on his weekly training hike on Diablo. On Tuesday I have to go to Lake County, a few hours from Sacramento. I will be late answering my e-mails but I will reply.

July 25, 2004

Q. How can I get a wireless company to place a tower on my property? I'd like to get the monthly rent payments.

A. I'm sorry but there's little you can do. Carriers perform engineering studies to show them where best to place their cell sites. They rarely consult a list of available properties, rather, they find an area their computers and people tell them to go, then they seek a nearby landowner. Getting a lease is like winning a lottery. I don't mean to sound negative but I don't want your hopes raised or your money spent on chasing a wild dream. If you have been contacted by a carrier, want to sell your existing cell site lease, or just want to read more about the process, click below:

http://www.privateline.com/Cellbasics/leasinginfo.htm (internal link)

July 24, 2004

AT&T's recent decision to end soliciting residential long distance service makes me think of the great difference between the largest employer of the Old Economy and that of the New.

In 1976 the Bell System employed over one million people, a figure only recently surpassed by WalMart. AT&T's work force was well paid, union, mostly skilled, and full time. Some fabrication, mostly service. WalMart's entry level employees are by comparison poorly paid, part time, all service, and non-union. WalMart's full time people do enjoy profit sharing, so greater money might be had than in the old Bell System. But that money is theoretical and far away, and definitely less certain than AT&T's well funded retirement program. On the positive side, advancement at WalMart seems comparable to AT&T's career track, you might manage a store in just a few years, and living in the same area also seems possible. Lifetime employees with the Bell System were frequently moved around the country to experience different work. Econmic class distinction is also different. Twenty five years ago everyone knew someone who worked for The Phone Company. I don't know anyone now that knows someone who works for WalMart.

July 23, 2004

Responding to yesterday's notes, a man who used to acquire properties for the wireless industry reflects on his former career. He must remain anonymous:

"We as an industry have taken way too many liberties with communities and landowners, siting towers where ever we saw fit with absolutely no regard for the most suitable location, instead finding the cheapest or the easiest to get property that allowed us to reach our paypoint. We then bullied our way through zoning hearings or found an area where the residents could or would not object (often because they were uneducated or poor). We brought lawyers into hearings in small towns that could not afford to litigate and, without saying so, threatened to bankrupt their city coffers with lawsuits until they gave in.

"Carriers would hire anyone to do site acquisition and then fight back with lies and engineering malarkey to justify a particular site. I once had a rep from General Dynamics stand next to me at a hearing and say that they could not move a proposed tower 30 feet because of the specific RF engineering requirements needed. When asked the same question by the board about my client, I punted, probably continuing the nonsense. I said my company did not have the same problem but that I could not speak for the engineers of another firm."

"One of the practices I fully disagreed with from a site ac perspective was that of liberally replacing the site sketch in the lease with a completely different site design at a later date. Then relying upon lease language that allowed such a liberal change to beat the landowner complaints down. I no longer do much work for the carriers."

July 22, 2004

Q. Dear Mark van der Hoek (internal link):

A wireless company wants to build a tower near me and I am opposed. They say they need this cell site to comply with their FCC coverage requirements. Is this true?

A. Whether this particular site is needed is a complex question, and cannot be answered by second guessing. Without a complete knowledge of the rest of their network build plan, it's simply impossible to judge the necessity of a particular location.

Cellular and PCS companies are not evil maniacs who delight in ruining neigborhoods by putting up as many towers as possible. On the contrary, they are businesses interested in making a profit. Every tower typically represents a half million dollar investment and they do not want to put up any more than they absolutely have to.

Left to themselves, cellular companies will build the most efficient network they can, covering the largest population with as few sites as possible consistent with good quality. But as they get pushed here and there by NIMBY (not in my back yard) problems, the ideal design cannot be realized, and they wind up building more sites overall.

One other thing they don't like to do - build stealth towers. They can be very expensive. I don't know if a stealth application would be feasible here, but it's worth looking into. A flagpole type tower can be used (external link) if they are proposing anything under an 80' tower. Most people find these designs more agreeable. Higher than that, though, and stealth designs are not usually workable. There are a few 100' flagpoles around, but soil conditions and other problems can be very tricky to deal with.

As to an FCC coverage requirement, this is difficult to say. If they are PCS in that area (meaning they operate in the 1900 MHz band), they are covered under CFR47, Part 24.2XX The specific section is CFR46 Part 22.203 Depending on the license, this specifies one of two coverage requirements.

1. For 30 MHz licensees: "must serve with a signal level sufficient to provide adequate service to at least one-third of the population in their licensed area within five years of being licensed and two-thirds of the population in their licensed area within 10 years of being licensed."

2. For 10 MHz licensees: "must serve with a signal level sufficient to provide adequate service to at east one-quarter of the population in their licensed area within five years of being licensed, or make a showing of substantial service in their licensed area within five years of being licensed."

Failure to meet these requirements results in forfeiture of the license, so it's not trivial! It's highly unlikely that they are operating on a cellular (850MHz band) license, as these were built out long ago. Those regulations are found in CFR47 Part 22.9XX.

I hope that helps!

Regards,

Mark van der Hoek

Selected Daily Notes Archive (Home Page has current notes)

Oldest (Page 1) to most new (Page 52)

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12) (13) (14) (15) (16) (17) (18) (19) (20) (21) (22) (23) (24) (25) (26) (27) (28) (29) (30) (31) (32) (33) (34) (35) (36) (37) (38) (39) (40) (41) (42) (43)(44) (45)(46) (47) (48) (49) (50) (51) (52)

Free Telecom Magazines through TradPub.com. Click here to go there