Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Money talks.  The FCC needs it, and the congressional appropriations committee isn't giving it.  At least, not to help the controversial LightSquared Wireless Broadband initiative get off the ground. 

The surprisingly powerful U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Committee voted June 23 to insert special language into a spending bill that would effectively block the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from spending any money on LightSquared’s plan to launch a controversial LTE broadband system until concerns about interference with GPS signals are resolved.

The prohibition on expending any federal money means that the FCC is effectively barred from any further consideration of LightSquared’s plan.  How?  It's simple: even meeting to discuss the plan spends federal funds through employee salaries. In short, until LightSquared comes up with a new plan that completely protects all existing GPS navigation devices from any interference, the company cannot operate its satellite-based broadband service.  As I commented in a previous post, this puts the impetus for protecting existing GPS solutions on LightSquared, not the GPS manufacturers themselves.


Not suprisingly, the hearings were marked by strong opposition from agencies such as the FAA testifying that the LightSquared plan would prevent the use of GPS in critical applications. According to the testimony, the U.S. Coast Guard would be unable to perform search and rescue operations, airlines would be unable to use GPS in landings at airports and other services would have their defense missions compromised.

Industry groups were even more strongly opposed to the LightSquared plan, suggesting that the use of an adjacent band by powerful transmitters would never be made to work without GPS interference. While representatives from LightSquared said that the problem could be solved by adding filters to affected GPS receivers, representatives of the GPS industry said that such filters don’t exist and that it would be impossible to retrofit all existing GPS devices. 

Are lawmakers protecting out-dated technology by preventing advancements that would force manufacturers to update?  It appears that way.  The cost to implement LightSquared's technology has now been amped to paralyzing levels not with development to its own product, but with research and development to improve other technologies. 

What's next: will GE be required to fund filters for all cordless phones so that their blenders and microwaves don't interfere? 

Labels: Fixed Wireless Broadband, GPS, lightsquared, LTE

posted by Unknown at 9:52 AM Link to this Article  0 Comments

Tuesday, June 21, 2011
If you're a global thinker or a world traveler, you have already taken objection to the title.  Just like our World Series of baseball, the World Champions of the Superbowl, and all our other national titles that we over-inflate as world titles, the same is true for this title.  The world didn't go wired.  America did.  In fact, other parts of the world totally skipped the wired revolution.  So, why then did America go wired?

In parts of the world where the communication boom came post-wireless revolution, nobody even thought to go through the trouble of laying cable or fiber.  Why even waste the time.  Just build transmitters and antennas.  But in the U.S., arguably the more advanced and faster-growing technology markets on the planet, we exist today in a state of dependency on wired local connections.

Local connections -- key point here, we all know that wires support wireless.  But what I'm calling into question is our dependence on wires for local loop.  From the hub to the handheld.  From dbox to d-link router.  Why?

My theory: it started with consumer, not business, demand.  Namely, telephone and television.  In the 60's and 70's, as such luxuries were becoming more necessity than nicety, the efficiencies of airwaves was still quite low.  Digital broadcast was only developed in the last decade and mandated just last year.  Analog signal on the spectrum simply couldn't deliver the hundreds of channels and multiple phone lines that we were all demanding. 

The result: by the 80's copper cable traversed most of the developed areas.  As cellular and other wireless technology matured in the 90's there existed a sense in which the cable was there, why not use it.  Aside from that, 3G and 4G speeds still hadn't arrived yet and wires still severely out-performed wireless. 

So, why this history lesson now? Why think about it today?  Two reasons: (1) wireless is catching up, and (2) wires aren't everywhere that people are anymore. 

Development has out-paced the grid.  Neighborhoods pop up in corn fields every day, and with neighborhoods come stores.  More and more, new development (both commercial and residential) is realizing the costs to keep the grid up with the demand.

Meanwhile, the alternative local loop, wireless signal, is catching up. The wireless "pipe" is getting bigger through optimization of signal (i.e. digital) and the release of more spectrum (a la FCC auctions). 

Will TV antennas once again be a regular scene on the rooftops?  Will T-Com super-giants like Time Warner Cable change with the times and begin delivering on the air once again?  Or, will we (unlike the rest of the world) keep up the illusion that every terminal, house, c-store, and business needs to be tethered with copper strands no matter the cost?

Labels: 3G, 4G, Broadband, Cell Towers, FCC, Time Warner, Wireless

posted by Unknown at 6:20 AM Link to this Article  0 Comments

Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Since we first introduced the topic of LightSquared and their controversial encroachment on the GPS spectrum, it seems that the coalition to save GPS, the U.S. government, several private companies like John Deere, and even LightSquared themselves have been very busy testing the real impact of their technology on GPS.  The prognosis: it's a mortal blow.

Two government agencies, the National Space-Based PNT (Positioning Navigation and Timing) National Executive Committee and the Federal Aviation Administration, tested LightSquared's technology.  In May, they confirmed that the interference was significant.

Deere & Company, makers of John Deere agriculture equipment, independently tested their GPS units and confirmed that LightSquared's broadband transmitters create a dead-zone for their equipment up to a 22-mile radius.

First, how does this happen?  Well, simply put, LightSquared is transmitting from earth's surface whereas GPS transmits from space.  The intensity of the signal is overwhelmingly larger (40,000 times, to be exact).  And, while LightSquared is not using the same spectrum that GPS uses (the FCC sees to it that doesn't occur) their spectrum is adjacent to the GPS spectrum.  So, while devices used for GPS were tuned to listen very carefully to a weak signal, their magnifying technology also leaves them susceptible to interference when such a strong signal exists just a few wave-lengths away.

Second, however, is the question: what do we do about it?  LightSquared has agreed not to deploy their network until a solution can be found.  Awfully gracious of them considering it's not really their problem to begin with.  And, mind you, they haven't asserted that they themselves must find (and fund) that solution.  To date, filters and amplifiers have been suggested, but LightSquared has not (nor should not, in my opinion) bear the financial burden of deploying that fix.  Their goal is to determine that a viable solution to the technological hurdle exists, however theoretical, at which point they can move forward with their plans knowing that their peers in the GPS industry have a recourse.

What's really at stake?  Rest assured, plains will not fall from the sky and tractors will not go on an unguided rampage through neighborhoods--although that's more or less what the GPS industry would have you to believe.  The risks are far more subtle than that.  If/when LightSquared is able to demonstrate that a viable filtering option is available, there will be great costs to deploying.  This could mean huge burdens for local municipalities and emergency response already working on tight budgets.  Private farmers, agricutlural industries, and utility companies will have some costly upgrades to swallow in order to keep their GPS equipment in working order.  All of this will mean either a higher tax burden or a higher cost of food and goods that depend on GPS, or both.  Meanwhile, LightBound's continued mission is to deliver rural broadband in the interest of  -- you guessed it -- economic development.

Is it all worth it?  You tell me. 

Labels: Fixed Wireless Broadband, GPS, Rural Broadband, spectrum

posted by Unknown at 5:30 AM Link to this Article  0 Comments

Tuesday, June 7, 2011
The United Nations reported this week on a topic that many of us already take for granted: broadband is a catalyst for economic growth.  "Broadband telecommunications have the potential to spur rapid economic growth and facilitate job creation" according to the UN's position and official findings.  So naturally, they offer some advice -- nay, an imperative -- to developing nations: invest in broadband.  The UN's position is that every nation ought to have a Broadband Plan.

Sounds great, right?  You want your economy to grow, so give it the infrastructure that it needs.  Lay the cables, build the towers, and deliver both terrestrial as well as fixed wireless broadband.  But I have a philosophical question.  Is broadband a state-supplied utility?  Is it a national issue?  Is it an imperative that states can act upon as the UN would encourage? 

Perhaps it is.  I'm no history expert, but I dare say that the first telecommunication networks in the U.S. were government funded, if not even government controlled.  Telegraph cables traversed the country along railways and served largely to facilitate state activities such as military.  The first commercialization of these services were done via leasing the use of these lines from the government by private companies. 

But if developing nations are to use the already-developed nations as a model, I would say that the good old invisible hand (thank you Adam Smith) built the great broadband infrastructures that we see today in Europe and America.  Cables were not laid and cell towers built in order to create commerce, but rather they were demanded by those who understood that they could. 

So, to challenge the UN's findings that broadband leads to economic development and job creation, let me challenge this: isn't it quite the opposite?  Doesn't economic development lead to broadband by virtue of demand.  And if so, then one must ask, what really does create economic development?

Labels: Broadband Plan, Economy

posted by Unknown at 8:37 AM Link to this Article  0 Comments