Slashdot Mirror
L.A. Building's Lights Interfere With Cellular Network, FCC Says
alphadogg writes "When a certain Los Angeles office building lights up, it's a dark day for nearby cellphone users, according to the Federal Communications Commission. Fluorescent lights at Ernst & Young Plaza, a 41-story tower near the heart of downtown, emit frequencies that interfere with the Verizon Wireless 700MHz network, the agency said in a citation issued against the building owner. The FCC's message comes through loud and clear in the filing: the building owner could be fined up to $16,000 a day if it keeps using the interfering lights, up to a total of $112,500. The alleged violation could also lead to 'criminal sanctions, including imprisonment,' the citation says."
Isn't this a case where the manufacturer of the fluorescent fixtures needs to fix them so they don't emit interference? Don't electronics of that type have to go through FCC testing?
Who are they planning to imprison for this? The president of the company? The guy who changes out the lightbulbs? Will they build a giant prison around the building?
Neither Ernst nor Young are around to throw in the slammer, both having started their corps. in the early 1900s.
What ever happened to the ubiqitous 47 C.F.R. 15.5? How did this building even find noncompliant lights to install, in the US? And weirder still, why the hell would a lighting system use 700MHz?
Are they sure it's the lights of the building and not the aura of an angel?
As the decriminalization of marijuana continues along it's mary way, there will develop a need to fill prison beds.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
- Building has non-compliant GI made FL ballasts, that they know there are some defects, it otherwise passed the FCC
- Building management seems negligent on fixing the problem in a timely manner.
it needs a web interface where you can just go by fuckslashdot.com or something similar. that's why slashdot reigns over some forums. easier to type in a pinch at work or where ever.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
In the DFW area over 50% of the OTA TV channels are strictly continuous ads -"infomercials." In view of the limited RF spectrum, why isn't this interference?
All right. I took a peek into comp.misc through the Google Groups web interface. What I am seeing there is just more of this "fuck beta" raving and a lot of just general spam. No thanks.
As the decriminalization of marijuana continues along it's mary way
mary Way? something tells me you want to become a /. editor
hah, OT but funny.
I can hear the PrisonCorp lobbyists now.
"But $congresscritter, we need this criminalisation legislation to keep american jobs!"
Why not something more specific.
comp.misc.slashdot perhaps?
You clearly don't know Usenet rules. A more specific group for comp.misc would be comp.slashdot. Which could then be split up into comp.slashdot.developers, comp.slashdot.ask, etc. with comp.slashdot.misc for the stuff that doesn't go into one of the more specific groups.
However given the group creation rules (assuming they are still enforced), it would be easier to create alt.slashdot instead of comp.slashdot (alt.ALL is a hierarchy with much more relaxed group creation rules).
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Upgrade to LED lights. High upfront costs but can use the same fixtures, uses less power, and absolutely no chance of having frequency issues.
Imprison the corporation!
Naw, he's probably one of those bald long haired hippies what like to smoke that rope dope
rewriting history since 2109
As Verizon (especially) lights up LTE they bring in trucks that look for problems in the 700MHz bands. They are taking a proactive approach to cleaning up the band before RFI causes problems. This makes sense since LTE uses QAM and high symbol rates to push data, meaning that the carrier to noise requirements are much higher than 3G. Most cable companies use the same frequency band, up to 750MHz. To make matters worse, cable systems use QAM carriers too, so the demodulators can get confused and pick up the wrong carrier.
Cable companies monitor their plant for signal egress from broken coax, cracked housings, poor craftsmanship, etc (leakage), but usually around 115MHz, in the aeronautical bands (since there's been cases of planes lining up on leaks instead of the glide path). Because some types of leaks are frequency dependent, a system that looks great in the aeronautical band might leak like a sieve at 700MHz. In fact a certain set top box happened to have vent slots that made a perfect antenna at 700MHz.
http://www.slideshare.net/Cisc...
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
If their bulbs emit beta radiation, they indeed should replace them immediately. ;-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
No. Specific classes of devices must accept all interference. Devices in other frequency bands can be highly protected and anything interfering with them prohibited from emitting.
Wifi is an example of "must tolerate interference" which is why it's open and flexible and easy to deploy.
The FCC regulates RF airspace. They are involved with anything that emits or accepts RF energy, whether purposefully or not. They are the responsible federal agency for enforcing this matter.
reddit works way better
All right. I took a peek into comp.misc [google.com] through the Google Groups web interface. What I am seeing there is just more of this "fuck beta" raving and a lot of just general spam. No thanks.
On the other hand, you can filter the posts according to your own criteria, unlike a web forum where the filtering happens centrally, if at all. As was pointed out in another article here just the other day, having the power at the edge instead of the core brings some unique advantages.
If you don't want "fuck beta" posts, there's a regexp for that!
trade war 2.0
The circuits that cannnot be cut are cut automatically in response to a interference incident. You asked for miracles, Mysidia, I give you the FCC.
And for those who want to use an easy all-in-one program to participate in Usenet, the Seamonkey web suite still includes an NNTP newsreader component (combined with the email component.) In addition to the Mozilla browser from before the beta-dudes at Firefox wrecked it, incidentally.
"Here’s what you need to know about dimming fluorescent lighting" link
How does one post to comp.misc (via a browser)?
Wonder if there is a square wave generator in the circuit (I.e., all frequencies-- an interrupter causes this problem with DC circuits in boats,for example, but it's easily fixed).
I'd say whoever made the light fixtures, and sold them for general use emitting that much interference is really the person against whom they should be acting.
The article says the lights are made by GE, who was aware that some of their ballasts were causing interference. IF the building owner was advised, and they failed to replace them, then they're at fault. If GE's replacement program was chintzy (ie they'd replace the fixture, but building owners had to pay for labor, for example), then they should be the target here.
-Styopa
What's going to happen after 17th. Will we keep this up? Or just abandon slashdot for good?
it could be great if /. would have separate comment sections. you could go over to the "beta" one and stop being annoyed. or annoying...
Rich
112 grand fine is cheaper than redoing the lighting system of a skyscraper, besides why is verizion that low anyway
The sad thing is, polluters follow the "power rule", that is 80% of the pollution is caused by 20% of the polluters, they use lobbying and public (mis)information campaigns that bias the general population against the civil service.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Jam that technojunk! Free up the airwaves again for real broadcast TV.
01/01/01
I dislike Beta as much as the next AC, but leave the gays out of it you homophobic fuck.
Just the other day I read in a magazine how a lot of LED lights are not at all EMC-proof. They may have an efficiency of 80+ percent, but they emit radio for the rest of it.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
Maybe they should check the CRTs as well. All of that EMI pr0n floating around. Question: What type of communications do Christians use? Answer: Ham Radio
Perhaps he meant Mary Jane?
Humanity interferes with my faith in humanity...
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
Because Beta has exposed a fatal flaw in web- based communities, ie that the current owner of a domain around which a community has formed can choose to do whatever they like, the new official Slashdot is on Usenet, at comp.misc and I hope to see you all there.
Eternal September is a free Usenet provider, with the caveat that they do not carry binary (warez+porn) groups. Head on over and get your account today, and then we'll see each other on comp.misc!
The intersection of people who regularly read Usenet and the people pissed off at /. moving past it's late 90's development model is nearly perfect.
Is there anything better than clicking through Microsoft ads on Slashdot?
It doesn't matter what GE does if the building keeps the old fixtures in use.
The building management was notified of the problem last April by the FCC. The management claimed they knew about the problem and were investigating. They agreed to send a report of the problem and remediation plan in 60 days. At that time, no fines were contemplated. Here we are 10 months later and no report and no remediation. Given that, the FCC has no reason to believe they'll ever do anything about it without significant prodding.
Back in April, they had plenty of time to contact GE and insist on replacements and compensation for the cost of swapping them out. Had they done it then, they could have avoided major disruptions.
As an amateur astronomer, I'm all in favor of turning off as many lights as possible. No, turning these off in the middle of city will make no difference, but symbolically I like.
I also hate cell phones.... ...from a Ram Dass perspective. Bascially just the title of his book, Be Here Now. You can't talk on a cell phone and be here now.
You can almost run me over crossing the street, however. I was "be here now," jumped out of the way, and am still alive to post rants at windmills on internet sites.
Does Digg even work anymore? It was once enjoyable like Slashdot used to be.
It doesn't matter what GE does if the building keeps the old fixtures in use.
The building management was notified of the problem last April by the FCC. The management claimed they knew about the problem and were investigating. They agreed to send a report of the problem and remediation plan in 60 days. At that time, no fines were contemplated. Here we are 10 months later and no report and no remediation. Given that, the FCC has no reason to believe they'll ever do anything about it without significant prodding.
Back in April, they had plenty of time to contact GE and insist on replacements and compensation for the cost of swapping them out. Had they done it then, they could have avoided major disruptions.
Bingo. Presumably they could have hired someone to come in with a spectrum analyzer or some such equipment and pinpointed the problematic fixtures... at the least, they could have come back in 60 days and said "we have 10,000 fixtures and we've retained a company to help us identify the faulty ones, but need another 90 days to find & remediate them ("a plan") - and it would have at least shown they were doing something. They chose to do nothing, and it's been the better part of a year - they obviously need some "prodding" to take it seriously.
> I think the increased efficiency and longer life will balance out in their favor at the end.
The efficiency of fluorescent tubes with a modern ballast is comparable. So the only two factors are cost and lifespan. At say 2 years per tube, about $20 will cover ten years of use. With bulk discounts, it might cost half that, $10.
An LED fixture with approximately the same light output is $472. For now, and probably for the next 10 years, florescent, halide, and some other options make sense for bulk lighting, but LED doesn't even begin to come close. Led makes sense for small amounts of directed light, such as a reading light, or an accent light on a picture. It makes no sense for lighting an entire office building, factory supermarket, parking lot, etc.
You clearly don't know Usenet rules. A more specific group for comp.misc would be comp.slashdot. Which could then be split up into comp.slashdot.developers, comp.slashdot.ask,
... comp.slashdot.judean.peoples.front, comp.slashdot.peoples.front.of.judea, ...
I think that's actually a feature they play to implement *in* the beta.
I, for one, am looking forward to the inevitable
It works pretty well but it's full of dipshit redditors...
After a bunch of anecdotal reports we did some measurements of radio interference caused by LED lighting (and the power supplies included in these globes).
Most were OK, but there are a bunch that spray out a large amount of broad band interference. Some spectrum graphs are here showing a few lights in their on and off states.
http://www.ledbenchmark.com/fa...
Interference was seen in the digital radio bands, FM radio, DAB bands, everywhere really. So the only thing surprising about this post is the lack of publicity the problem has been given to date.
Modern LEDs and modern fluoresent tubes have comparable efficiency.
In more detail: LEDs have the potential to be about as much more efficient than switcher-ballasted flurorescents as such fluorescents are more efficient than generic incandescents. Actual LED fixtures have been improving and right now are at the point where they're matching and starting to edge past fluorescents.
Give 'em a few more years and LEDs should be substantially ahead of fluorescents. But this year they're just about tied.
(This is why I haven't replaced my fluorescents with LEDs yet. I plan to do it in a few more years, when my current stock of spares, enough for about one more bulb change, is used up. I'm abouit to switch the yard lghting, though, because the motion detector / fluorescent fixture combination has been problematic and is now failing.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
comp.slashdot.beta.sucks and comp.slashdot.beta.sucks.comments.sucks ...
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
How can these ballasts cause disturbances outside the building? - The building itself will act as a partial shield (try getting a cell signal inside - can be next to impossible) and the basic emission cannot be that powerful.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
In Sweden, somebody noticed her new electric cooker was interfering with iPhone. When asking the company that produced the appliance, they were told those ovens are compatible only with Samsung products, so they should change their phone. Link to the article in Swedish:
http://www.dn.se/ekonomi/bara-samsung-kompatibel-med-spis/
Grocer's apostrophe. Idiots.
http://www.acetonestudio.com
If you can find a ham radio club, they will usually have people in them who know about foxhunting (RF direction-finding) and have the equipment to do it. They will likely do it for fun (and for the fact that they hate RF interference more than anyone on earth).