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LightSquared Wants To Share Weather-Balloon Frequencies for LTE
IDG News Service reports (as carried by PC World) that LightSquared, having lost some of the spectrum they'd hoped to use for a nationwide LTE network because of worries it would interfere with GPS service, has a new plan: to use some of the spectrum currently reserved by the federal government for uses like weather-balloon communications. From the article: "The new plan would give the carrier 30MHz of frequencies on which to operate the LTE network. That's 10MHz less than it had wanted but still comparable to the amount of spectrum Verizon Wireless and AT&T are using for their LTE systems, which in most areas use just 20MHz. Wireless network speeds are determined partly by how much spectrum the network uses, so LightSquared might be able to deliver a competitive service for its planned coverage area of 260 million U.S. residents."
Just don't know when to fold.
[The Universe] has gone offline.
Second verse, same as the first. LightSquared just doesn't want to pay for spectrum. First they tried muscling in on satellite frequencies, claiming to the FCC that they'd primarily be satellite-based while telling everyone else that they'd be terrestrial only. And of course, they got caught because pretty much *any* terrestrial-strength broadcast is going to swamp out any satellite-based stuff on the same frequencies.
So now they're trying it again, trying to squeeze in on some pre-established frequencies. I don't claim to know any technical details of weather-balloon communication, but I do know this: if it *were* possible to safely share those frequencies with LTE-like communications, it would likely have been done already. Given their prior track record, LS is going to have to argue pretty effectively to convince me.
Look, LightSquared. You should've just paid for actual spectrum you could use before. You acted like a cheap bastard and tried to use the wrong parts because it was cheaper, and then you cried when it didn't work.
I suspect the request to "share" frequencies with weather balloon transmitters has less to do with available bandwidth and more to do with a relative lack of industry who will be able to stand up this time to object. Weather balloons typically transmit at less than 300 milliwatts. If they couldn't figure out how to keep their land based-transmitters from overpowering 50 watt gps signals, I don't see how high-altitude balloons signals will fare any better.
Shameless plug for my photos on Flickr
And also, Why would Weather-Balloons need that much frequency juice in the first place ?
Its older, cheaper, disposable tech. Might only be 400 baud downlink but usually a pretty wide signal. Simple FM/FSK modulation maybe. The problem is you launch 10 to different altitudes, due to frequency drift from being cold (cheap, remember?) you might find that a struggle to make them all fit without interfering with each other. On a boring fall day you don't launch 10 at a time, but for all I know in a hurricane (literally) you might drop 10 at a time.
Congress already told NOAA to stop using the bottom half or so of the band. The problem is radio allocations are done by the ITU... This is the usual american arrogance problem where it turns out the FCC only regulates inside the US. If someone in Canada wants to launch at 1770 MHz, which is well within ITU regulations, short of bombing the Canadian weather station I'm not sure what they intend to do about it. Just accept the interference I guess.
Also the 1700 MHz band has coprimary with radiosondes and met satellites. The weather satellite people are going to be pissed if their frequencies are reallocated only over the USA.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
As mis-planned as LightSquared's business plans seem, I do really hope they or someone with a similar idea succeeds soon. Competitors obtaining and lighting up spectrum for data seems like one of the few market based actions needed to really put a bit of pressure on Verizon/ATT and even local broadband providers. That combined with some hopeful new ideas for the FCC on how it doles out spectrum and we could see some increased capability in US broadband options.
Here is yet another hair brained scheme to use a public resource on the cheap for private profit. Who needs accurate weather forecasts and severe storm warnings when we could let yet another carrier overcharge us for wireless bandwidth?
Another cloud computing business model.
> has a new plan: to use some of the spectrum currently reserved by the federal government for uses like weather-balloon communications.
BECAUSE NOBODY EVER USES THOSE FREQUENCIES FOR ANYTHING USEFUL RIGHT GUISE?
The amount of stupid in this company just really makes me wonder if I should just start my own scam and get away with it for years while burning up investor money in impossible persuits designed to fail.
It's like The Producers. Heaven forbid they actually do something useful and have to pay back their investors by building a useful network
--
BMO
The Powerpoint presentation:
Meteorological Aids Spectrum Issues
It comes down to this:
Radiosonde transmitters operate in a hostile environment, with strict limits on weight, power and so on.
Most will never be recovered or reused.
Keep it simple.
Keep it affordable.
Pissed-off weather balloon attacks CEO of LightSquared.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Meh, give NOAA sim cards and get off those old hand built single purpose radios and let then use cheap cell radio chips.
If this tech is cheap enough for every speed camera in the country its cheap enough for a throw away baloon radio.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Actually the FCC told them they can use their own spectrum, if they comply with the conditions they agreed to when they bought it. LS's problem is that they don't want to comply with those conditions. It looks to me like they knew they couldn't make their network fly with the original conditions in place, but they went ahead and bought the spectrum anyway betting that once they had it they could weasel out of complying with the conditions by boo-hooing about consumers. The FCC didn't buy it. I've little sympathy for LS, they should've just said up front "We can't make this work under those restrictions." and not bought the spectrum. Then they wouldn't have this problem.
going OT, someone said reason why so many Part 15 unlicensed devices on 2.4GHz (i.e. wifi, baby monitors) is way back when various services were carving up the spectrum (TV, music, amateur, marine, business, police, military, aeronautical, etc.) but there were certain frequencies FCC designated as ISM (industrial, scientific, and medical) where companies want to use RF for materials process, cook food, or certain medical applications. These are chunks of spectrum that has no modulation and/or callsign ID. So everyone's happy until all these innovators in Silicon Valley come along and develop various wireless systems of all kinds of stuff but spectrum is full. "Whaddaya mean we're late for the party and there ain't no spectrum left?" So they put all there stuff on 2.4GHz.
mfwright@batnet.com
Seriously, why the fuck does all of their plans involve using SOMEONE ELSES BANDWIDTH?
Because the FCC told them they can't use their own. If you're going to deny them the use of the spectrum they own and paid a couple billion for, I would think it would be reasonable to help them with obtaining an alternative.
They bought satellite to ground spectrum. They can do all the satellite-to-ground their little hearts desire. They just can't set up a bunch of vastly more powerful ground stations and transmit from those.
In other news, my '120db death metal at 3am' plan does not seem to enjoy robust 1st amendment protections...
spend much time in the country. Recovering these tings in any reasonable amount of time is not always practical.
The FCC told them they could use it if it did not interfere. Everyone who understood radio knew it was going to interfere, but LS insisted on going ahead. Don't blame the FCC or GPS for LS's arrogance and stupidity.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
This doesn't have to be an adversarial process or a bad thing.
If I were in charge, I'd tell Lightsquared "sure, no problem... as long as you supply suitable communication equipment and free bandwidth to anyone affected", where suitable is a low-power modem capable of running for X hours on Y mHA of battery power, and operating between V-Z temperature range.
If they want to give NOAA, Universities, and anyone else involved in using weather balloons free low-power LTE modems and some reasonable bandwidth, why not? You could go even further and make them provide a geosync satellite uplink to make sure they have nationwide coverage for weather balloons just in case they are out of range of ground-based towers.
It would certainly be a more efficient use of the spectrum compared to 400bps transmitters that have to be isolated by frequency from each other. You could launch 1,000 weather balloons in the same area without any interference issues... something not possible with the current system.
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
You don't realise how cheap the sondes are. There are hundreds launched every day, and they don't get them back. They have to be incredibly cheap and there are no GSM technologies cheaper than a simple FM radio.
There are technical limitations too - GSM only works up to about 5km, above that they will likely fail. Sondes usually fly to about 30km.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phones_on_aircraft#Cell_tower_channel_re-use
The technology may be cheap enough to use in a speed camera, but then again a speed camera is not hovering a thousand feet or more off the surface of the planet. There are other issues at play here, the cellular networks unsuitability for use at high altitudes is one of them. I've worked with weather tech up north (in Canada) before and all their equipment was through-hole with lead based solder specifically for in-field repairability and general durability. I no longer work with those guys, but I can imagine they'd all freak out if they had to switch to BGA (not even surface mount!) just to support a 3G modem and all the support hardware that requires.
Remind me why everything needs to change because LightSquared believes they're entitled to profitability again?
Meh, force AT&T and Verizon to make Cellphone towers to beam the signal UP instead of down to the ground to satisfy a bunch of whily rich guys that dont know anything about technology. I'm sure they will do it for free and not pass the new fees along to the consumer.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
If this is a go, Lightsquared is morally obligated to allow the license it bought previously to be combined with this new spectrum and "re-auctioned," contingent that it get a full refund with interest and some reasonable costs it has already incurred if it loses the new auction.
Why?
Because other bidders placed their bids based on the usefulness of that spectrum at the time, knowing that GPS was already in use and that other slices, including the weather-balloon slice(s), were already allocated.
If Lightsquared pressures the government into changing the rules of the game, everyone deserves a do-over.
Morally speaking.
Is Lightsquared going to go along with this if they can avoid it and still make their spectrum usable for LTE? I very much doubt it.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
DO these guys actually have any RF engineers on Staff or Just Fucking Lawyers !?
It's the "I'm not dead yet" guy. They haven't yet threatened to bite off any legs. And the FCC already said "You're not fooling anyone."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Unfortunately, most average citizens have no understanding of wireless technology, so when a guy like Steve Jobs came along and offered them a consumer gadget that requires loads of bandwidth they buy it by the millions. Now they, and the politicians they elect, and vendors who seek some of their money are locked in a battle for unlimited quantities of something that is limited... bandwidth within the RF spectrum.
The hard truth is that there is a limit to the available spectrum, and that limited resource should only be allocated to uses that can only be performed wireless. It borders on the criminal to have smartphone companies building video and web browsing into phones... individuals filling their vacant cranial cavities with individual streams of Youtube cat videos, Justin Bieber music, and other individualized streams of pablum should not be competing for use of the nation's RF spectrum with satellite communications, GPS signals, firefighters, police, air traffic controllers, national security, TV and Radio broadcasters (who each serve millions with their broadcast pablum) and so on. Broadcast signals (like GPS, radio, and TV) should have priority since they each serve an unlimited number of people with their bit of the spectrum. Signals that only serve a single civilian user should be the absolute lowest-priority in the system.
Want to make a phone call from your home to your office? Use a land line.
Want to make a call from your car? Cell phone is fine... it's the only way to solve the problem
Want your laptop to talk to a printer? Plug in a cable (network, USB, etc)
Want a security camera? Run a wire
Want you pilot to talk to the control tower? That requires wireless
Want to know where you are while hiking, boating, flying or driving? GPS is great, it uses little bandwidth and serves millions of people, and cannot be done with wires.
With hard-wired networks, there is no limit to the bandwidth... you can just pull more cables when and where needed and your use of bandwidth has no impact upon your neighbor's use of bandwidth (he can pull all the cables he wants on his property). With wireless, on the other hand, each user is consuming a slice of a national asset which he/she does not individually own. There is no way to increase the available RF spectrum... if you want more for something then something else must get by with less. Additionally, most people do not understand that some frequencies of RF energy work better for short-range communication and others for long-range... and some frequencies can be used with small-and-cheap electronics while other frequencies require bigger and more expensive circuits (although this latter limit changes over time of course as technology advances).
Unfortunately, as long as carnival barkers like Steve Jobs keep offering consumers new shiny baubles that need more bandwidth, there will be other jerks like Lightsquared who will try to make a buck by promising consumers more of the RF spectrum (and gambling that public pressure from the uninformed masses for more will force the government to allocate more) for stupid shiny objects at the expense of vital things like navigation, public safety, national security, etc.
Was the "arrogant American" comment really required to make your point?
Yes. All we need is federal approval from the FCC because we're the worlds empire, stated by someone who doesn't know anything about the frequency allocation process..
The reality is the ITU and its friends regulate international allocations in 3 regions for the world, and then individual countries allocate within the regional international allocations. Its run mostly by techs, and has worked remarkably well.
I guess a close internet analogy would be some .com demanding ARIN take ip addresses from, say, AfriNIC, without talking to IANA (or AfriNIC) about it first.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Wow, a Luddite on Slashdot gets modded up...
Luckily we have many systems in place for managing scarce resources. In fact, almost any resource you deal with throughout life is scarce. I'm not saying we manage wireless frequencies efficiently, but I'm quit sure that "navigation, public safety, national security, etc" have been improved by smartphones rather than suffering due to smartphones taking their bandwidth.
I'm not going defend LS (they're just whining because they're not getting their way), but if they're willing to pay for changing the weather balloons to another (lower) frequency, this might be viable. The weather sondes could still be made cheaply if they were moved to something like the old TV frequencies, possibly even a whitespace frequency. The lower frequency would propagate better, and possibly require less power. The bandwidth, data rate, and power levels shouldn't be a problem. The ground stations might need upgrades to receive the lower frequency, and LS should have t pay for those, as well as any development costs for new sondes.
So, while I'm skeptical, it might be viable IF LS is willing to pay for the changes. Of course, this only applies if weather balloons are the only use of the frequencies in question, AND they demonstrate that their use won't cause interference with GPS (still close in frequency) or other nearby frequencies.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
According to the official chart, it looks like weather balloons probably make much greater use of the spectrum than LS is willing to admit: http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/8b51a211569e.jpg
Maybe they should look into the swamp gas spectrum.
Wouldn't it be hilarious if they gave those who lease the spectrum to them free service, with which usage will ultimately use a large chunk of the available bandwidth (active data use), which will let the end amount of bandwidth be somewhat similar to that of the large service providers today?
"New, fast, 20mbps data* available.
* Mileage may vary. Real-time bandwidth tests show end speed at roughly 1-2mbps."
Just food for thought :)
... individuals filling their vacant cranial cavities with individual streams of Youtube cat videos, Justin Bieber vomiting, and other individualized streams of pablum should not be competing for use of the nation's RF spectrum...
I did a quick correct on that line for ya.
"There is no way to increase the available RF spectrum."
No, but it's trivial to increase the available bandwidth. Smaller cells. You don't increase the EM spectrum, of course. You dilute the amount of bandwidth being utilized within whatever stretch of land you wish to consider. It's the equivalent of "just run more wires!" you were ranting about.
Carve one cell into four smaller cells? You just quadrupled the potential bandwidth. Gets complicated with the antennas and cell phone software, but that's an existing and mostly solved issue. I drastically improved the mobile bandwidth by plugging in a "cell tower in a box" into my LAN (isolated like no tomorrow, I don't trust Verizon). Voila, users are happy with their cell speed again. They COULD have just used the WiFi, but why type in a password?