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In Room With No Cell Service, Verizon Works On Future of Mobile
alphadogg writes "If you think your house has bad cellular coverage, Verizon Wireless has you beat: A small, windowless room high up in a San Francisco office building gets no service at all. That's not because carriers are neglecting the bustling South of Market business district where the room is located. Instead, it's because Verizon is paying so much attention to what's going on there. The room with zero bars is in the heart of the Verizon Innovation Center, where Verizon network and business experts help developers of new wireless devices and apps to turn their ideas into products."
I said... can you hear me now?
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
They just took a picture of a room that gets no Verizon service at all. You can find oh so many of them.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Let us hope that the work they do there comes to nothing, and is overwhelmingly forgotten. It's a more charming approach than simple brute force and lobbying; but this is also an extension of Verizon's work to stave off becoming a dumb pipe, and reap the rents that doing so allows. That isn't good news for anybody except them, and possibly their favored app and/or device buddies.
Not only are they surprisingly bad at it (hands up, everyone who ever had the pleasure of a phone with a fully Verizoned ROM, or a Comcast-rented cable box UI); but the conflicts of interest inherent between offering a product or service and controlling the infrastructure over which that offering is delivered are irreconcilably dangerous.
that "...small, windowless room high up in a San Francisco office building (that) gets no service at all." sure has one hell of a view according to the pic in TFA.
The shielded room, about the size of a walk-in closet, only has space for a small desk, a couple of chairs and a bank of network equipment. It isn't meant to stay wireless-free. Instead, Verizon engineers use current and emerging wireless gear to create special radio environments for testing.
The "shielded room" is a small part of the VIC.
It is called a Faraday Cage and it works very well at blocking RF signals. Pix....
I helped assemble one many years ago. There was an FM radio inside the cage that would receive the local campus station quite well...until the cage door was closed, then would just hiss.
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Maybe they meant that is has no TCP window?
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
Are typically RF shielded as well. There is nothing new, exciting, or exotic about a Faraday cage. Why is this article even here?
"... help developers of new wireless devices and apps to turn their ideas into LOCKED-DOWN products THAT GOUGE USERS."
There. FTFY.
Come on, Verizon. Charging EXTRA to tether when they're ALREADY paying for the data?
Booooooooo.
Anybody who develops or tests radio receivers of any kind (including cell phones) has one or more shield rooms - it's no big deal. As a more economical (though less effective) alternative, many also have screen rooms, which are little rooms built out of two-by-fours that are surrounded with copper screening. It's about as amazing as the fact that Ben & Jerry's R&D department has a freezer.
RF chambers feel like coffins and definitely are not for the claustrophobic. Additionally they are not that rare . Anechoic chambers are in practically every place that does RF testing or RF engineering. See if you can find one at your local University. This article was clearly not written for scientists or engineers.
If you're wondering, that means that they've built a faraday cage the size of a room. They're a lot of fun if you can get one.
In what way? Every company I've ever worked at has either had one, or bought time in one. They suck. They're poorly ventilated, noisy & hot (from all the equipment running in a confined space), and if you forget to leave your phone outside, they'll kill your battery.
RF chambers feel like coffins and definitely are not for the claustrophobic. Additionally they are not that rare . Anechoic chambers are in practically every place that does RF testing or RF engineering. See if you can find one at your local University. This article was clearly not written for scientists or engineers.
Right you are. People also forget that every MRI machine, in every hospital, everywhere in the world, is in a totally shielded room (and much, much larger than the little test closet in the article.)
So reading about a room (closet really) that "Oh my golly gosh - has NO cel service!!!. Imagine that!!" is kinda lame.
MRI RF Shielding specifications ...more:
Copper soldered RF shielded enclosure for MRI scanner
SECTION 13095 RADIO FREQUENCY SHIELDING FOR MRI SOLDERED COPPER RF SYSTEM
PART 1 - GENERAL
1.1 DESCRIPTION
The purpose of RF and magnetic shield construction is to create an enclosure in which radio frequency (RF) and/or electromagnetic interference (EMI) is contained and/or prevented from entering. This environment is necessary to ensure proper performance of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) equipment.
http://www.national-mri-shielding-specifications.com/