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October 18, 2004

October 16th's note below are complete, scroll down to see a link to the page where the story continues.

Hidden telephone companies

Many people assume wireless networks get built by the companies that own them. AT&T, for example. That's not always so, in most cases it is not. I'll try to have a little more on these hidden telecom companies in the days to come. Bechtel Telecoms, for example, has been upgrading and redoing most of AT&T's wireless network since 2000. At a cost of $600 million dollars each year. I normally don't quote this much of a press release in my daily notes, and much of it is self serving, but I do find it fascinating how little we know on how things actually get built."

"Bechtel is managing end-to-end deployment of new cell site builds and supporting transition from a 2.5G network to a 3G high-speed data network for AT&T Wireless Services (AWS). Underway since 2000, the project has moved the network from TDMA through GSM, GPRS, and EDGE capabilities, into wideband UMTS services. Bechtel is also supporting the AWS E911 Phase II compliance initiative through the installation of TDOA and AOA technologies."

"In the past 4 years, AWS has doubled their footprint from 114 to 226 million POPS and has built a brand new GSM network with 2.5 GPRS/EDGE software. This software provides speeds nearly double other national wireless data networks, and is up to three times faster than traditionally wired dial-up services. In addition, AWS has deployed a true 3G UMTS network in four select cities, which will provide data services in 2G range. These high-bandwidth connections now link wireless phones and laptop computers to the Internet, letting consumers surf the Web, connect to their office desktop, play online games, take and transfer photographs in real-time, and will eventually allow video-conferencing."

Bechtel's Role

"Four years ago, AWS chose Bechtel to help manage the capacity and coverage needs of their network with the deployment of TDMA sites. In 2001, Bechtel was selected to manage the transformation of the network from a TDMA network to a 2.5G GSM/GPRS/EDGE network, capable of handling high-speed data. This upgrade and expansion involved the overlay of 30,000 existing sites with both 1900 and 850 GSM technology. In 2003, Bechtel was asked to provide further enhancements with the implementation of the full 3G UMTS capability in four key cities, as well as support capacity and growth requirements in the existing network.

Much of this work was turnkey, with Bechtel providing network RF planning, civil design, site acquisition services, transport testing and acceptance (including microwave design, installation and testing), and construction management. The work encompassed a wide range of cellsite types from well-hidden stealth sites in major city cores, through the standard monopole and tower cell sites, to distributed antenna systems in airports and other large venues.

In addition, in 2002, Bechtel was requested to support the AWS commitment to the FCC for the implementation of E911 Phase II technology, using Time Difference of Arrival (TDOA) and Angle of Arrival (AOA) technologies. Bechtel has installed these technologies in approximately 14,000 cell sites in 37 states, supporting 199 Public Service Access Point (PSAP) requests, allowing AWS to meet their commitments to the FCC." Continues at the Bechtel site-- http://bechtel.com/ppATT.htm (external link)

October 16, 2004

"As part of the work for my paper for the IEE, I'm trying to get to grips with the 'antecedents' of PCM - the ideas and technologies on which Reeves may have drawn. Do any of your readers have ideas or comments? We know that sampling had been suggested by Miner and Squier, while Morse or his assistant Vail came up with what we now think of as regeneration."

"What's much less clear -- at least to me -- is whether anyone else had the idea of transmitting speech in a 'telegraph-like' way - perhaps the key feature of PCM. Some writers (including, interestingly, Reeves' boss Maurice Deloraine in When Telecoms and ITT were Young) have suggested that Page, Bourseul and Reis were attempting to do exactly that when, in their early experiments with what eventually became telephony, they sought ways to turn speech into a form suitable for transmission over the telegraph network."

"It appears to me that such attempts were doomed to failure as we know they largely were are 'digital' only in the very limited, technical sense that the telegraph was all they knew about and hence was the model they were exploring. Reeves, by contrast, came after Bell and hence was proposing to sample the by-now-existing 'analogue' signal and turning these samples into 'digital', that is, a telegraph form. This appears to me a far more subtle and more complex task. In making this suggestion, I don't want to appear to denigrate what Page et al did, but I really don't see them as part of the 'digital' story."

"What do you think ?"

Tom Farley:

"Yes, you are totally correct. The early inventors, those before Bell, were all on the wrong path, thinking they could reproduce speech in those early years by making and breaking a circuit, just like with the telegraph. They were a million miles from success, just plodding along, electricians in a field that needed people familiar with electricity and acoustics. They weren't on this path deliberately but blindly, so I would pay them little attention in a history of digital beginnings."

"To quote my own telephone history series: internal link)"

In 1861 Johann Phillip Reis completed the first non-working telephone. Tantalizingly close to reproducing speech, Reis's instrument conveyed certain sounds, poorly, but no more than that. A German physicist and school teacher, Reis's ingenuity was unquestioned. His transmitter and receiver used a cork, a knitting needle, a sausage skin, and a piece of platinum to transmit bits of music and certain other sounds. But intelligible speech could not be reproduced. The problem was simple, minute, and at the same time monumental. His telephone relied on its transmitter's diaphragm making and breaking contact with the electrical circuit, just as Bourseul suggested, and just as the telegraph worked. This approach, however, was completely wrong.

Reproducing speech practically relies on the transmitter making continuous contact with the electrical circuit. A transmitter varies the electrical current depending on how much acoustic pressure it gets. Turning the current off and on like a telegraph cannot begin to duplicate speech since speech, once flowing, is a fluctuating wave of continuous character; it is not a collection of off and on again pulses. The Reis instrument, in fact, worked only when sounds were so soft that the contact connecting the transmitter to the circuit remained unbroken. Speech may have traveled first over a Reis telephone, however, it would have done so accidentally and against every principle he thought would make it work. And although accidental discovery is the stuff of invention, Reis did not realize his mistake, did not understand the principle behind voice transmission, did not develop his instrument further, nor did he ever claim to have invented the telephone.

This page continues here ----> (internal link), with many great comments by Don Kimberlin. (internal link)

October 15, 2004

More on the control channel in IS-136

Professor Richard Levine and Mark van der Hoek contribute more valuable information on frequencies and call processing in IS-136.

October 14, 2004

Cell tower and cell site newsletter

Ken Schmidt (internal link) now produces a newsletter with news and views on tower and cell site issues. Subscribe or read it on-line here: http://www.steelintheair.com/CellTowerIndustryNews.htm (external link)

Going backward with voice quality

Although IP is the future for data networks, does it have to be for voice? Are we going to kill our legacy circuit switches (internal link) and consequently voice quality (internal link) because of it? MCI recently announced they are going to route their international gateway traffic to "carrier class voice over IP." That means they'll use their own internet protocol network to send traffic, minimizing latency. But that problem will still be there. How long will it be until the other major telcos go IP for international? And then domestic? Perhaps sooner than we thought.

October 13, 2004

First barcodes, now semacodes

http://semacode.org/ (external link)

Finally, a real use for camera phones: reading semacodes. Barcodes identify individual items or products to machine readers; our modern supermarkets and delivery systems would break down without them. Semacodes are a web equivalent, they identify individual web pages. Point your camera phone at the image above, hit the right button on your semacode enabled camera phone and whoosh!, you're taken to a specific webpage.

Print a semacode on the back of your business card and direct clients to your site. All they have to do is let their camera phone image it. No more typing in hideously long URLs. Use semacodes in print magazine ads so customers can find out more about your product or to order it. Neat, eh? How about printing a semacode on registration papers for new products? Scan the code, wirelessly connect to the manufacturer, register, and be done with it. That would make life easier.

Semacode's site is lost in geekspeak, it's a web developer's site, really, but I think the idea is a good one and if kept out of Microsoft's hands might actually succeed. As ubiquitous as barcodes are now, semacodes might someday rival them in number.

October 11, 2004

Sell a good product well

I've commented many times that cellular radio is a great technology that has been sold poorly since the start: confusing rate plans, one year, now two year contracts, bogus coverage maps, salespeople on quotas that don't know what they are talking about, and on and on. J.D. Power and Associates, though, has just released their 2004 Wireless Retail Sales Satisfaction StudySM (internal link, interesting reading in .pdf). T-Mobile ranked highest in overall retail sales customer satisfaction. J.D. Power's Kirk Parsons states the obvious, "Retail outlets that set the proper expectations and do not oversell the product or service generate significantly higher ratings and, more importantly, increase the likelihood of repeat purchases." Of course. How simple.

Cellular has been successful in spite of its retail methods, not because of it. People have put up with poor service because they need the product and because the industry has been so profitable that they've been able to ignore customer complaints. Only in the last two to three years, with increased competition, are they starting to worry about how they treat people. Well, they're starting to. Speaking of which, the leftist but effective American Association for Retired People, or AARP, is targeting the cellular industry, now that wireless is trying harder to sell to older Americans.

The New York Times reports today that, ". . .AARP is not happy with what it has heard from its members: complaints about incomprehensible service contracts, confusing bills and dead zones that are not clearly marked on coverage maps. They are the same concerns that have been expressed for years by other consumer advocates, who now have a new champion in the 35-million-member AARP." The Times quotes Steve Largent of the CTIA, "For whatever reason, the AARP has been coming after us. It is very troubling." Indeed. And you have no one to blame but yourselves.

I read many wireless industry publications; customer service and complaints have not been a concern. They figure you'll go to another carrier if you have a problem. Some customers walk. They call this turnover "churn." Lovely word. Anyway, it was cheaper for them to accept a certain percentage of churn than it was to put money into better customer service or to fix dead spots out in the field. When churn started getting too high carriers introduced two year contracts to lock customers into place. Only now, again because of increased competition, are they starting to throw money into sales help and technology. It will take many years but sales and coverage among national carriers will eventually improve. Not because the carriers are happy to, but because they are forced to. A wonderful product sold poorly. A shame.

October 10, 2004

Spent the day walking in and along the North Fork of the American River. I went from the end of Lake Clementine to about a mile downstream from Codfish Falls. If that makes any sense to you. I saw no other walkers, only four people in kayaks. At one point it was over five hours before I saw another person. I am constantly amazed how little used are parts of the Auburn State Recreation Area, only forty minutes away from a population center of a million or two. I will get back to those abbreviations discussed below. Soon. Working on it!

October 9, 2004

Right now I'm crushed with other work. I'll try to resume these daily notes on the tenth. Too many things to do, not enough time. Oh, did you hear about the new John F. Kennedy Jr. movie coming out? It's called Three Funerals and a Wedding. Hee, hee, hee.

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