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DoD Dreams of Efficient Spectrum Usage

Posted by michael on from the spectrum-spectrum-everywhere-and-nary-a-drop-to-drink dept.

Unstrung writes "US Military research agency DARPA is sick of all those static-filled cellphone calls and dropped connections too. The shadowy eggheads are working on a way of using the bandwidth available today more efficiently."

9 of 135 comments (clear)

  1. this just in... by red_five_standing_by · · Score: 5, Funny

    DoD reports that they have fortified the radio spectrum with "stuff" for more "goodness." They declined further comment.

  2. Doubt it. by smittyoneeach · · Score: 5, Funny

    After ten years active duty, and one in the Reserves, I can attest that the DOD has few, if any, dreams of efficiency. Keep trying.

    --
    Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
    1. Re:Doubt it. by PD · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Let me shorten that down a bit for you:

      The efficiency isn't about money, it's about efficiently destroying the enemy, weighed against the expense of our own soldier's lives.

      --
      If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
  3. DOD, DARPA and Inovation by haz-mat · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The DOD and DARPA have a long history of bringing about technical innnovation, regardless of how slowly it comes into actual being, the very medium we are using (or abusing) right now is a result of that... unfortunately given the fact that i am at "work" right now, i can attest that they are not interested in efficency, mine is dropping like a rock... TGIF

    1. Re:DOD, DARPA and Inovation by craw · · Score: 4, Funny

      The role that DARPA played in the "early" days of computing is often overlooked. DARPA funded the initial prototype development of something called the Stanford University Network workstation. IIRC, a guy by the name of Joy at UCB also received DARPA funding to enhance some of the capabilites of a "new" OS called UNIX. Eventually, the two efforts joined forces and produced a commercial product.

      RISC technology was pushed forward by DARPA. One effort eventually led to MIPS. Another effort led to the development of the RISC I and RISC II. This technology was licenced to Sun Microsystems, and eventually evolved into a more scalable architecture. I believe that this had some modest commercial success.

      Warp and the Connection Machine were the result of DARPA funded efforts to push forward and test the capabilites of massively parallel computers. These were technnological wonders, but did not achieve commercial success. At least, one of these was featured in a very successful motion picture. Furthermore, thanks to MIPS, probably the geekiest line in motion picture history was spoken, "This is a UNIX system. I know this."

      I would also have to speculate that a there are numerous computer industry leaders that had RA's in grad school via DARPA funding.

  4. GSM by Zephy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why not just convert everything to GSM? it works fine for the rest of the world. You never get static (digital transmission), and the call drop rate is a lot lower than analogue

  5. Interference Problems by Detritus · · Score: 5, Funny

    Give me a couple of RDF (radio direction finding) stations and an 8" howitzer and I will eliminate all of your interference and congestion problems.

    --
    Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
  6. Must be listening to George Gilder by John+Jorsett · · Score: 4, Insightful

    George Gilder has been talking about this for years. He gets your attention by making statements like, "available bandwidth is infinite." His basic point is that if the whole spectrum was available and if communicating entities continually adjusted their power levels and frequency to just what's necessary to communicate, the reuse of the spectrum could make it seem nearly infinite. I think he's probably right; I've seen some special radios designed on this principle, and their ability to communicate great distances with teensy power levels was nothing short of phenomenal.

  7. Re:frequency allocations by mz001b · · Score: 5, Informative

    this link seems to actually work: http://www.ntia.doc.gov/osmhome/allochrt.html