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The 700MHz Question
mstrchf07 writes "The FCC will soon be auctioning off the rights to use the 700MHz spectrum for wireless communications, with the winner being able to choose the direction of wireless services development in the US. With stakes this high, is the playing field fair, and are business needs trumping consumer and technological interests?"
The final solution to the 700mhz question?
I hope it doesn't involve camps...
(godwin'd!)
Fascism is the greatest political ideology ever conceived. Sorry.
just like early years of internet. some source that is open and free should take custody of it until it is no longer vulnerable.
Read radical news here
specifically:
In Soviet Russia, government controls the commerce.
If you don't get why that is amusing and appropriate - this about the nature of the Soviet Russia jokes, and what that says about the US.
Don't they always?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Nothing is ever done for the good of the consumer. Consumers don't buy off politicians. Consumers are simply a source of money.
With stakes this high, is the playing field fair, and are business needs trumping consumer and technological interests?"
No, and Yes.
If I understand the article correctly, it would seem that 700 Mhz spectrum would only give you 15 MB/s of available bandwidth if it used similar compression techniques to 802.11g. If, as the article suggests, this spectrum were to be used for some big WISP, maybe Google, it wouldn't seem to me to be very viable as the available bandwidth would be split amongst LOTS of users in order to keep it cheap. Now, UMPCs and mobile devices conceivably need less bandwidth, but then, isn't that what we have wireless phone service for?
It seems to be like this article is a bunch of meaningless speculation about Google's plans for being a ubiquitous WISP.
My blog
With stakes this high, is the playing field fair, and are business needs trumping consumer and technological interests?
No. Yes. In that order.
They playing field is rarely fair when business is concerned. If corporate interest is involved, there is always a corporation able to affect the environment much more than any governmental regulation; and they will always affect the environment in their own favor, whether it is in the best interest of citizens or technology or progress or any other damned thing that doesn't have anything at all to do with "maximizing profits."
This is all stupid talk. Some corporation will end up in control of a public resource. The public will get fucked. That's how it works. That's how it always works.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
I would have loved to see a horse race with the entertainment conglomerates, google and the telcos. Sadly, the entertainment conglomerates can't see the forest through the trees and would abuse consumers just as much as the telcos.
Telcos win, consumers lose. Same story different day.
Got Trader Joe's? friendwich.com RSS feeds work now!
Google shall get the 700MHz because they have no greedy interests...or do they..?
So what is the FCC going to do with the money they make off this?
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Glad someone got it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
With stakes so high, it seems the FCC is going to benefit the most.
Anyone know how much money the FCC currently brings in by selling thin air?
Excuse me...business needs? More like business wants. Actually let's just shorten it up to business greed. There's absolutely no need for any business that's gonna bid. It's not like they'll go bankrupt without it. They're all doing just fine, they just want to hold the spectrum hostage with their technologies for more money as a monopoly.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
They want to control it all, so they would be ideal to own this band. Besides, let them spread themselves so thin that they collapse under their own weight.
I haven't read through the article yet, but thank you, thank you, thank you for submitting the single-page "printer-friendly" link.
I heard they were going to buy some of it to do their own wireless thing?
mstrchf07 asks ...are business needs trumping consumer and technological interests?
Of *course*!
And it's not even a matter of business needs, it's business greeds.
Some days it's just not worth
chewing through my restraints.
Better than Google buying it, is to have a company that is owned by multiple companies who buy it, open it up, and then develop devices geared for it. In particular, it would be good to get Google and perhaps IBM in there.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Just yesterday Newt Gingrich came on the George Stephenopolos(sp?) show and claimed that 70% of Americans support reduction in corporate taxes, 60% support abolition of capital gains tax etc etc. That would be alright if he is genuinely a fiscal conservative sincerely trying to reduce the size of the government. But he opened with "New Orleans is still a mess, ..." What? It is somehow the Govt's job to allow people sandwiched between Gulf of Mexico, the Mississippi and the lake to build homes below sea level and keep pumping out water and spend couple of billion dollars in the levy system?
If Republicans would not take on people's unrealistic expectations from Govt what right they have to complain about Tax and Spend Democrats?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
That is clever. It turns the whole joke on its head.
good old days where innovation was not restricted by the government?
"Are business needs trumping consumer and technological interests?"
Of course they are. Business needs are what bring profit to individuals so they can afford to live apart from the herd. Business needs drive everything.
If as a worker, I want to succeed, I pick the company that succeeds according to business needs and grow with it. When buying stocks, I pick the company with closest attention to business needs.
Technological and consumer interests have nothing to do with it except as means to the end of business needs. That's how it is.
technical writing / development
A very good point. Maybe the FCC should not allow those big telcos who already are sitting on leased airwaves from bidding any further, leave it to some new companies instead. Let them run with what they have now, improve that, and let some others pull up a chair to the wireless table.
I also think they should drastically reduce the hoop jumping and expense for lower power broadcasting, open that up as well, commercial or not for profit, it doesn't matter, we have good tech now that would allow a lot more stations on a smaller community basis rather than just extending a few conglomerates power.
Shouldn't that be: "are business interests trumping consumer and technological needs?"
-- "At Microsoft, quality is job 1.1" -- PC Magazine, Nov. 1994
YES. Where have you been?
At least in the US, it has become so painfully obvious that our government's number one priority is Big Business. Watch the bills that are drawn and enacted in this country and you will quickly see that almost all of them are catering to business interests and, most likely, trampling on individuals' rights.
Adapt, adopt, or get out of the way!
Let the government divide the spectrum by the number of US citizens and give everyone their portion of the bandwidth. People could then band together to combine their khz or Mhz and do interesting things. But I reiterate- the spectrum belongs to us.
Insightful!? The ORIGINAL Soviet Russia jokes were like that. They were not only funny, and the reverse of America, but TRUE. This is probably the first SR joke in years to actually capture to spirit of the original, and you say it got turned on its head!
UGH!
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
Soviet Russia hasn't existed for some time save for bad jokes in a Bruce Willis movie.
Well, communism is commerce. The two words have the same origin. It provides benefits of collaboration amongst countrymen than capitalism doesn't. Not to say that competition is a bad thing. All things being equal, more innovation comes from competition then collaboration. That said... eventually everything worth innovating will be completely innovated competition will fail. When that happens, it will become important for the government to control the commerce.
So yeah, this has always been a sig that has made me smile.
Support the 30 Hour Work Week!!!
Actually, public corporations are required, by law, to make as much money for their shareholders as possible. It's called fiduciary duty. So they really do need to make money.
There are four boxes used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order.
Did Congress and/or the FCC commissioners flunk Econ 101? If they auction the spectrum off, the eventual winners will need a business plan that produces some return on this investment. The greater the auction price, the more they have to earn. The more they have to earn, the more they are going to have to squeeze out of the eventual consumers.
Sure, its not absolute. They still have to provide service that consumers will 'want' (even if they employ cunning marketing skills to generate that want) or nobody will buy. The primary error in this auction scheme is that consumer benefit will best be served by the fees they are willing to pay. This might be true of commodities, but if the gov't wants to encourage innovation, they are going to have to provide a cost structure that allows risky investments without high financial losses sholud they fail. Bidding the resource costs up ensures that only 'safe' technologies will be developed.
Have gnu, will travel.
Well, it is an interesting use of the joke. First, Yakov Smirnoff's version of the joke was usually to have the reverse of America, but have the American version make sense, but the Russian version paint a bad picture of Russia. The GGP post reverses this, having the Russian thing make sense and the American be corrupt. Since the joke is about reversal in the first place, reversing the reversal is in itself a bit funny.
Also, the jokes were originally meant to be a bit dark and ironic, and then used as a Slashdot cliche they were usually ironically ironic, resulting in a sort of nonsensical whimsey. Now, another layer of irony is added, almost returning the joke to its original sense, but I would say not quite to its original sense. So much irony has basically made it a non-joke, and simply a piercing critique of current US policy. It's pointing out that as ridiculously backwards as Soviet Russia was, it still may have been less backwards than we are now.
Now, did I really have to explain myself like that?
Fixed that for ya.
Even people that believe in pre-destiny look both ways before crossing the street.
Advocating public ownership of a shared resource does make you a socialist, and that is in no way a bad thing. It is extremely naive to think that society can exist indefinitely without any concern for the impact of private ownership of a shared resource.
STFU about slashdot bias.
I understand the digital signal can possible narrow the bandwidth required 'some'. Yet Why don't they let the Stations use the remainder also? I suspect they might be afraid that they may try to compete with the other communication service providers for supplying other supplemental information and entertainment and perhaps even two way communications. I have noted that the cell phone frequency is not a healthy one [brain tumors are a possible concern]. It probably was an analog device I was using, none the less, it was making my head feel odd on the side I was holding it. I have no real love for them anymore. As for the Government and financial system we are in; I am of the notion that the only wise way to go is to get back the original Constitution's potential for diversity in the executive branch. [We used to have two votes. It wasn't long before the political parties ground that to a halt.] Yet, since in the end the full nature of reality rules over us all; we need a system that is applied just as rigorously upon those that can put the hand of power over many, as it is applied to common science endeavors and common law. No doubt only one can be the boss. Yet the potential to check the dominate entity in the courts, at the very least, is not an insignificant influence. Likewise, the ability to sequester the executive branch where security concerns arise is understandable. Yet the facts should always eventually come out. They are sworn to service the people, not the other way around. As far as the financial system goes, we are not well induced to consider the balance of things very well. I am of the view that there need to be two kinds of money. 1) Resource money, you cannot function without the resource base. 2) Cultivation money, one can work in the realm of IOUs with it, and not run into a wall. It might also help the people consider the balance of the various factors need to have a better standard of living. Also, given that there is a concern to reach the goal of more equitable availability of resources; business will be focused on cultivating the individuals to have their resources go through their system of cultivation. Ultimately everyone is poor where they cannot fully express the nature of the benefit they could provide to the whole. We just need a more balanced way to get there. I suspect, there would develop "instutions" of views and processes that would call out their benefits, and their competitor would point out the weaknesses. At least we might be better informed. And with MUCH computerized recording, it might even be possible to have the value of the cultivation moneys change as the processes fully played out their impacts and benefits. [Even failures have some value if they are recorded and used to prevent another.] At least it would keep everyone thinking more clearly, and precisely, in harmony with the reality that rules over us all; to which, perhaps, we owe the most. Sincerely, Gregory D. MELLOTT
Mobile phone spectrum auctions in Europe were so expensive they destroyed the industry. The money received from spectrum sales are not significant though compared to the value of what the spectrum facilitates in terms of our economy. There is no longer a good reason to auction, except that those have been the rules. It used to be that a telecom company had to show they had money so they could roll out infrastructure responsibly, however we have found that even with $200bn they still can't do it. Rather, I believe the money spent on licenses should be spent on municipal infrastructure, possibly with a nonprofit designated to ensure these networks are upgraded and managed. Or even by a company with Google-type thinking. If they must auction then give part of the money to nonprofits that could be given part of the spectrum too. Because of the need to recoup license investments, telecom companies are led away from using metrics of customer satisfaction, price, coverage, neutrality and usefulness which are now proving to be more important.
Somewhat more comprehensive, and including a bit of historical perspective is this analysis.
Now where's the obligatory "640MHz is enough for everybody" line?
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I dunno if they taught you this growing up, but explaining why a joke is funny kind of kills it.
Everything that can be invented has been invented.
Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. patent office, 1899
WRONG! That's so wrong it's not even funny! It is NOT the frequency of the channel, but the BANDWIDTH of the channel, which varies as the baud rate changes. I can cram just as many symbols per second down a 5 MHz wide channel at 10.7 MHz as I can down a 5MHz wide channel at 1GHz - indeed, the first thing almost ALL receivers do is mix the channel down to a lower frequency (look up superheterodyne receiver). Moreover, a "noiseless" signal can carry an infinite amount of data - Look up Shannon's law!
If they cannot get even these simple little things right, why should I trust any other aspect of the article?
www.eFax.com are spammers
Well, Communism and Capitalism have always been the exact opposite of each other (according to jokes, at least. IMO, they're more similar than they want to admit).
Like: What's Capitalism? The exploitation of man by his fellow man. And Communism? Exactly the opposite.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
They've perverted it way beyond the original US design and intent. "Profits" were only one part, it wasn't the whole enchilada. In fact, we fought the revolution to not only get away from the "royals" and their edicts, but to get out from under the thumb of colonizing/exploitative corporations.
In the beginning, corporations had to fulfill some public good, they were highly regulated, they couldn't own stock in each other, their charters could be revoked if they screwed up a lot easier, there were a lot more restrictions on them influencing legislation and elections, and etc.
What we have now is people just blindly parrot the "greed is good and 'it's de law'" mantra. Nuts. I say we go back to the original idea and "incorporate" the civic duty and being responsible (and *loyal* to their own nation and peoples first for that matter) bits back into the mixture, and do it before it is too late. We have transnationals now that are more powerful than governments, including huge well armed mercenary army "corporations". How about that latest IBM set of patents, patenting how to screw over the US worker? That's crazy. Governments exist for all the peoples inside that governing body, not just the top wealthiest 1%, or that is the theory anyway. I say it's a good idea to go back to that model.
Here is a short overview history of US corporations,and here's another take on it. Google has a lot of choices there, chose those two at random from the top of the list.
If enough people wanted it and were as serious about it as you, GM would either give you an electric car or go out of business. From what little I've read about the electric car, it could have been close. Obviously we've let ourselves get so addicted we can't live without it. They have us over a barrel, but it's our fault.
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer. The maxim is so perfectly self evident that it would be absurd to attempt to prove it. But in the mercantile system the interest of the consumer is almost constantly sacrificed to that of the producer; and it seems to consider production, and not consumption, as the ultimate end and object of all industry and commerce.
It cannot be very difficult to determine who have been the contrivers of this whole mercantile system; not the consumers, we may believe, whose interest has been entirely neglected; but the producers, whose interest has been so carefully attended to; and among this latter class our merchants and manufacturers have been by far the principal architects.
(Book_Four*Chapter_VIII*Conclusion_of_the_Mercantile_System)
The GGP post reverses this, having the Russian thing make sense and the American be corrupt.
Depends on what you mean by "Commerce".
If you're talking "The Invisible Hand" of economic pressure originating with the desires and choices of masses of individuals, rather than bribery of officials by corporations or wealthy individuals, a free-marketer would still consider the Russian version to be corrupt and the American version not. B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
If you're talking "The Invisible Hand" of economic pressure originating with the desires and choices of masses of individuals
I don't think that's what we're talking about. What was written was, "In Soviet Russia, government controls the commerce." According to the format of the "In Soviet Russia..." jokes, you'd reverse that and say that, in America, commerce controls the government. It implies that the government is being controlled by wealthy entities exerting economic pressure over officials (i.e. bribery).
I'm quite aware of that, and it's exactly what I'm addressing:
There are some people who think that "commerce controlling the government" might be a GOOD thing. (Presuming, of course, that it ISN'T just outright bribery by an elite, which is what the original poster was joking about.)
Please re-read the post.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I've re-read it, still not getting it. The "invisible hand" of economic pressure can control commerce and have it be a free market and a good thing, but what does it look like when the "invisible hand" of economic pressure controls the federal government?
Individuals in the government should not be making decisions based on their own personal economic gain. When they do, I'd tend to call that some kind of "bribery" or "corruption", even if it's not explicitly structured with one guy handing money to another.
In my opinion, the federal government should limit itself to a narrow scope and content itself with limited powers, but should always use those powers judiciously for the sake of the public good. What room is there in that for "commerce"?
The only way for the "free market" to be more "free" than that would be to disband the government entirely and have a general anarchy loosely controlled by whatever commerce can survive the anarchy. I guess there are probably people out there who think that system would be good, but they're madmen. It would greatly harm "the market" anyhow.
"Young fool. Only now, at the end, do you understand."
I've re-read it, still not getting it. The "invisible hand" of economic pressure can control commerce and have it be a free market and a good thing, but what does it look like when the "invisible hand" of economic pressure controls the federal government?
Prohibition leading to increased alcohol consumption, formation of gangs, gang wars, shooting wars between gangs and law enforcement, poisonous booze, etc. Similarly with the "drug war".
Gun restrictions leading to increased crime - including increased shootings.
Anti-poverty programs leading to an increasing fraction of the population permanently supported by such charity.
Price controls leading to alternation of shortages (i.e. gas lines) and further price increases.
Federal aid to and meddling with school systems leading to drastic reduction of the quality of public education - until some public schools are literally graduating more illiterates than readers.
I could go on.
Individuals in the government should not be making decisions based on their own personal economic gain.
The individuals I'm talking about are the citizens. The invisible hand works in more ways than via money.
Meanwhile, the government deals in the economy of negative values (such as the use of force, theft, imprisonment, and killing). Some of the same "invisible hand" analysis can be applied to such values and the "market reaction" of the people these are applied to. But their reaction to the negative sign on the "value" causes higher-order effects to be stronger than first-order, leading to explosions of unintended consequences. So the design and application of law is not straightforward.
One of the differences between the capital-letter "Progressive" and "(classic, non-Neo) Conservative" sides of the culture war is that the Progressive side acts as if the first-order ("intended") consequences of the laws are their only effect - leading to an explosion of trying harder and making it still worse when the effect is the opposite of what is expected. Classic Conservatives take into account the second-order effects - which makes them look insane to those who don't understand what they're doing (and won't listen to, or won't believe, their explanations, or will reject them because they're not "nice".)
It's not immediately obvious, for instance, that fewer guns means more crime or that selfish motives can lead to good long-term effects for others and altruistic motives to bad ones.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Ok, that's a big long explanation of why you're conservative, which is fine. But my question is how are you going to have "commerce" run the government as a good thing? Even if you have conservatives running the government, using careful planning and looking towards secondary and tertiary consequences, they still shouldn't be choosing laws based on personal economic gain, should they? Shouldn't they be making laws for the good of the country, and not based on what makes them money?
Or else, what do you mean?
Use the knowledge and experience of FCC Licensed Amateur radio operators around the nation! They can build networks better than anyone else.
As long as Google keeps it interesting it would work. But once everyone and their friends start abusing it, then it'd stop being fun and fall apart..
But my question is how are you going to have "commerce" run the government as a good thing? ...
I didn't say *I* thought it was a good idea. I said "a free-marketer would still consider the Russian version to be corrupt and the American version not."
Ask one of them. B-)
(Personally I think that free markets are great and we ought to try them some time, but that when the values go negative they tend to break down and you need something additional. Like some minimal government. Or and armed population with a serious commitment to "Never start a fight, always finish one." along with some common idea of what constitutes "a fight", i.e. impermissible force, fraud, or threat. And there are lots of other possibilities.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I don't think there are any of the sort of "free-marketers" in existence who aren't either children, madmen, or disingenuous about their views. So who would I ask?
I'm saying that I don't even understand what kind of concept you're getting at. By what method does commerce control the government except through bribery and corruption? I don't see even a possible theoretical mechanism for it.
Maybe I'm alone here, but I think universities such as Harvard (and others) should team up and buy the 700MHz spectrum.
I think Google could do a great job with the spectrum, but I think it'd be better for innovation if universities held the reigns instead of a corporation. No matter how much the company insists that it isn't "evil."
On re-reading I see what you were getting at. Let's try that again:
Two sine waves of the same frequency added together will always add to one single sine wave (which is how you get 208V from two 120V power phases), and if the two components are 105 degrees apart (360-255=105), that single sine wave will have 159% of the strength of one of the components (whereas if the signal power was not split between the antennas this would be 200%). Since it leaves both antennas at the same time, and they are one wavelength apart, the radiation pattern will have a 3db gain (not relative to the 159%) at the north, south, east, and west points with nulls in between each point. What am I missing?
You're missing that the two sine waves are equal strength and phase (in your simplified, symmetric, case) only when both stations are supposed to hear an equal amount of signal and hear it with the same phase (as measured at the transmitting location). If the modulation later calls for the NE station to hear the signal 180 degrees out of phase (compared to the previous case) its component at the antennas will be phase shifted. The signals at the two antennas will no longer be in-phase and equal.
In your first case the N antenna gets one sine wave at 0 degrees and another at -0.207 * 360 = -74.52. In the second case it gets one sine wave at 0 degrees and another at -0.707 * 360 = -105.48. Meanwhile the S antenna had 0 & -74.5 in the first case and -180 & -74.52 in the second.
case 1:
- N antenna: Phase -37.26 degrees. Amplitude 1+cos 74.52 degrees.
- S antenna: Phase -37.26 degrees. Amplitude 1+cos 74.52 degrees.
case 2:
- N antenna: Phase -52.74 degrees. Amplitude 1+cos 105.48 degrees.
- S antenna: Phase -127.26 degrees. Amplitude 1+cos 105.48 degrees.
See how that works?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
This thread is starting to drop off the end of my posting history.
If you'd like to continue I've started a journal entry for further discussion.
I'll reply to your above post after you've posted there to indicate that you made the move.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way