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Why UK FM Needn't Be Killed For Broadband
superglaze writes "Alarmed by rumours of the UK telecoms regulator Ofcom considering a shut-down of FM radio in order to give more spectrum over to broadband, ZDNet UK's Rupert Goodwins has proposed another idea: the reuse of the mostly disused 'Band I' and the creation of a new, national open mesh network — a plan that could bring internet connectivity to everyone at very low cost."
No revenue for kickbacks
No gatekeeper to charge ISP fees
No gatekeeper to monitor who is being naughty or nice
Quick do it now and do it fast before Rupert or Richard snaffle it.
The Singularity is closer than you think
Quant
I don't know what Ofcom is thinking. Take-up on digital radio is low, costs are still high, and the benefits to the consumer are minimal when compared to digital TV. I really can't imagine people retrofitting every car and replacing every alarm clock.
yeah, cause killing analog TV here in the states went just fantastic! now i get half the channels i could previously.
Please correct me of I'm wrong, but an open mesh network would completely decentralise internet connectivity leaving the Government with no way to implement website blocking and three-strikes laws etc.
While a truly democratic government would support open mesh in the public interest I doubt our lot would approve it.
The months are just too short. I can count the number of days on one hand.
You'd need a pretty big antenna to transmit/receive reliably in the 50-70Mhz range. Not to mention that's really not enough bandwidth to set up a mesh network, unless you don't mind your network crawling along. lt's a neat idea, and would make a nice hobby project, but in terms of practical use, not so much.
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
I think this underestimates by quite a lot just how difficult large-scale mesh networking is. Last time I checked, the current state of the art didn't scale above small local meshes - it's quite hard to avoid every node having to know about every other node, and the schemes which don't have this requirement tend to instead have a hierarchical structure in which the nodes at the top of the hierarchy are a bandwidth bottleneck.
The UK government (and, well, various lobby groups of course) is rooting for rolling out digital radio (the already outdated and creaky DAB) and since few listeners care for a worse listening experience ("mud bubbles") at the price of more expensive radio sets with shorter battery life, any other reason to kill FM radio is welcome.
And yes there's plenty of unused spectrum available now so that FM needn't be killed. In fact, there's a consultation going on right now about 600MHz which basically poses the question "what the bloody blazes shall we do with it? Any ideas? Anyone? Puhleeze?!?" virtually with exclamation marks and all.
Why can the UK (read UK government) not just wake the hell up and realise that the UK is a lot smaller than Australia, and if the Aussies can get plans in place for a National Broadband Network, giving everyone a fibre connection to the home, and renting this network back to telcos and ISP's, they we could do the same here and actually create a HUGE revenue stream for themselves. FFS... have Ofcom own this network, and rent it back to the telcos.
Why do we not just stop bailing out big banks that cannot manage a pissup in a brewery, and use that money (was it £53 billion the previous government spent on that). I believe that BT's estimate of £54 billion to build a national network is a little on the high side, but then I do not have all the facts.
My 2 worth... Let the flaming begin :)
20Mhz! Don't make me cry!
A single WiFi 802.11g transmission occupies 16.25Mhz officially, with interference out to 20Mhz width, That's the amount of frequency space available here. But unlike WiFi that's limited to a couple of hundred metres an FM signal can go for miles with potentially thousands of transmitters in range, sharing the bandwidth.
With landline broadband starting to use 'fibre to the box' and getting headline speeds at or above the 54Mbps official 802.11g bandwidth and practical speeds exceeding a quarter of that a wireless broadband implementation trying to serve more than THREE users on this frequency is going to be 'slower'. Even for 'officially broadband' speeds you'd be lucky to be able to serve more than ten or twenty.
If I'm going to 'pull a number out of my airs' I wouldn't go above 100kbps for sustained bandwidth in a 'high use' area, and that high only because people would be leaving because of the 'crap speed'.
Why would the UK need that particular frequency band for broadband when countries with much larger distances and much higher broadband availability (e.g. Sweden or Finland) never did?
"internet connectivity to everyone at very low cost"
What a nice dream that would be...
You cannot compare FM Radio's free Music service over Paid Broadband. FM Radio is still a bliss for countries where electricity outages takes place regularly, although this does not seem to be a reason in UK, but i doubt it and those who listen to FM would fight this till the end. Those who are planning this seem not to have heard FM radio and therefore they do not know how much joy it gives. This also can be a step to compel people to pay for Music instead of listening it free, which i do alot.
My issue with digital radio is that it isn't really solving any problems and actually introduces some. This is really the antithesis of what technology is about, the sense it should be improving in what went before.
FM radio degrades nicely, is of sufficiently good quality for all intents of purposes, is relatively low demand on power (transmission and reception) and uses cheap electronics. Add to this that in an emergency scenario it is relatively reliable.
Unlike HDTV pictures, I haven't ever heard anyone say their digital audio transmission is better than FM. What I have heard is that some people feel the content is crap, and that is usually from people living in the USA.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
I think that army might have something to say about that as those frequencies are those that are usually used in army exercises. And are those that many army equipment radios are able to handle.
Digital radio has negligible benefits for normal people compared to AM / FM, and public broadcasting services should serve people's interests.
The real purpose of these changes is mainly just to force people replacing perfectly good devices or buy digital decoders to enrich the pockets of a select few companies. (with the TV, it also provided the rich with better image to look at on their fancy plasma whatever screens.)
Oh, did i mention digital emitters are less efficient too, because they require class AB amplifiers with a max efficiency of about 78% as opposed to class C which can do something over 90% ?
Stop hiding behind the "we" and state who really needs it - manufacturers and sellers of DAB, and assorted companies to carry out the conversion of emitter stations...
Even though some problems can be addressed, things like inherent high power consumption of digital devices and the fact that a digital signal doesn't degrade well (and having more error recover codes means you have to transmit more signal per second worsening the first problem) will stay here no matter what you use. (the last will probably force building more emitters... or doing it the US way of not giving a crap about those too far)
And why the fuck is "analog age coming to an end" ? I thought it's best to use whatever technology does the best job.. but then i have the outdated 20th century belief that technology should serve man and not the opposite.
Rupert Goodwins has proposed another idea: the reuse of the mostly disused 'Band I' and the creation of a new, national open mesh network — a plan that could bring internet connectivity to everyone at very low cost."
I don't know how it works over there but if it has any government oversight chances are they'll screw it up.
"We are just a war away from Amerikastan. When god vs god the undoing of man." Dave Mustaine
GNAA first post.
http://www.encyclopediadramatica.ch/GNAA
That is the only GNAA/RIAA/MPA/CIA rap.
All cows eat grass!
That's also my main complaint with broadcast TV... it suffers from the same problem of being either perfect, choppy and generally awful, or "no signal" Are there any digital codecs out there which have graceful degradation of quality for either video or audio?
The sending of this message pretty much inconveniences everyone involved.
Why would you even *want* to use radio for long distance networking? It's a terrible idea. Unless you're many miles from anywhere (which most of the UK isn't) just use wires.
For mobile networking you want lots of small short range cells connected by a wired (or point to point radio) backbone. Then you can reuse the same bandwidth loads of times and use less spectrum to support more high speed clients.
VHF goes miles (and even further when there's a "lift") so each node transmitting will fill the airwaves for miles and miles around. Using Band I would be even worse than using Band II. When there's an atmospheric lift you can hear Band I TV signals from eastern Europe. That's HUNDREDS of miles. Do you really want people HUNDREDS OF MILES away interfering with your network connection? It's bad enough when everyone in the STREET is sharing three radio channels.
There's a reason digital services have abandoned VHF lo: noise.
There are a great number of noise sources with high energy content in that band both natural and man-made, and those noise sources carry a long distance (as do all transmissions in that frequency band).