>>>No part of the USF goes towards broadband Internet access.
No not yet, but if I was a Congress or State politician my "DSL for Everyone" law would reappropriate those USF funds towards the DSL upgrade. .
>>>DSLAMs are installed in the central offices, not the neighborhoods
I've researched this (unlike you apparently) and in rural communities the DSLAM is hung directly off a pole, with a fiber optic feeding it. Perhaps not the greatest solution, but it does eliminate the need to hire millions of diggers to install a million miles of fiber over twenty years time. DSL is the fast, cheap, and effective answer because 99.99% of Americans already have the necessary lines running into their homes.
And for your claim that DSL is not the answer, you once again demonstrate your ignorance. The 2nd fastest nation in the world is Japan, and 95% of their internet is based upon DSL. If it can work for them, it can work for us too. .
>>>Where are you getting 15 miles from, too? What is it, 256Kbps at that distance?
No 768k. Which is 15-30 times faster than what most rural users currently have, and therefore a worthwhile goal rather than the current "do nothing" approach we've been doing (i.e. leaving rural users at 28-56 k).
>>>>>broadcast TV which delivers a gross bitrate of 30 Megabits every second >> >> Wrong, American TV broadcast is max 19.39Mb/s
Wrong. I said GROSS bitrate. So maybe you should read more carefully before you bitch at someone like..... well, a bitch.;-) My sentence as written is correct, with one minor correction: "Broadcast TV delivers a gross bitrate of [~]30 Megabits every second."
>>>there are no restrictions on modulation schemes for these devices
Yeah nice try, but there ARE real world limits ("You cannae break the laws of phyiscs!" to quote Scotty). Just as 4 kilohertz phone lines have a real-world limit of 56 kbit/s so too does wireless communication have a limit.
The FCC tried a 16VSB modulation that doubled the bitrate to approximately 40 Mbit/s, but it failed. There was too much noise and it corrupted the broadcast data. And even if a miracle occurred and you did manage to achieve 40 Mbit/s per channel with your TV Band/whitespace Device, my area still only has two open channels.
For the 100 people I mentioned before, that's still only 0.8 Mbit/s each.
Dolby B cassettes can achieve signal-to-noise ratio of 80 db... just shy of the 90 db of CD. (Of course with today's volume compression most CDs barely exceed 20 dB volume change.)
Chrome/metal cassettes have a frequency response of 20-24,000 hertz, which exceeds the 20,000 limit of CD.
Bullshit. If CFLs actually lasted that long, mine would not have died in less then 12 months (about 3 hours per day usage). That's between 1-2 times as long as a regular bulb lasts, so the CFL just wasted my money ($3.00 versus 25 cents for a normal bulb).
H.R. 6144, the Better Use of Light Bulbs Act. - it repeals Subtitle B of Title III of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 that made incandescent bulbs illegal. It also saves American factories from being closed and workers put out of work, due to this banning. The ALF-CIO website goes into further detail: http://screwthatbulb.org/
Of course my main motive is that I simply hate CFLs. They are as unreliable as eMachines.
>>>Back in the late [80s], that was premium service.
Fixed that for you. 9600 bit/second speed was available on BBSes if you were willing to pay 5-10 extra/month. That's why I corrected your sentence. - By the late 90s 33,600 was standard with 56,000 just released (1998).
As you can see from my signature I obviously prefer HD Radio
(1) It's free
(2) It has CD quality sound
(3) The HD2 and HD3 subchannels are commercial free (yay!)
(4) It's familiar. I can continue listening to the same Talk AM and Music FM stations I've always heard, even as I move from analog to digital. Plus I gain a whole new range of HD2/HD3 stations, effectively quadrupling my choices.
Even if China's government did hack my account and discover some horrible thing I did, so what? I'm 10,000 miles away and they cannot touch me. This is similar to how I laugh at New York government's attempts to tax my ebay sales..... "Okay fine I owe you about $100 for 8% tax. Now I'd like to see you try to collect it when I live 500 miles away."
Governments are virtually powerless outside their own boundaries.
Yeah but how much energy is saved when I have to make a special trip in my Car to carry the Burned-Out CFL to a special recycling center (due to mercury content). Benjamin Franklin has a saying: "Penny wise and pound foolish." This is the same deal where you're saving a few watts of power and then burning-up kilowatts on disposal costs.
The incandescent would save more energy overall, because it can just be tossed with all the other garbage and doesnt need special (read: energy expensive) handling.
Yeah okay. And how many iPads have 18 db Transmitting Antennas attached to them? Or could handle the required 20,000 watt power output without draining their battery to empty in 2-3 minutes?
My original point, that iPads will not be receiving or transmitting across 50 miles, still stands. Their milliwatt transmitting output would never make it that far.
As for line-of-sight: Not quite true.
Both VHF and UHF have the ability to bend around the curve of the earth, so if you jacked up the power high enough (i.e. millions of watts for VHF), you could reach 1000s of miles. That is how early VHF TV broadcasts were able to be seen all the way from England to New York City, and vice-versa. Then the scientists learned to dial back the power to limit the reach to just 100 miles or less.
I mentioned WPVI-6 as having boosted from ~5000 to ~20,000 watts which extended their range all the way from Philly to Baltimore. i.e. Double what they had. If they increased it to 1 million watts, they'd probably be receivable as far away as Ohio, and without any need to change their current antenna height. This is similar to how you sometimes hear VHF FM Radio across multiple states - most of the power "escapes" into space but enough bends around the earth that it can be heard on the ground.
That's what they do in the UK - provide free television by satellite. I wish we had this in the US, Mexico, and Canada but so far neither Dish, Directv, or any other company has offered it:
>>>And who's going to pay to lay all of the fiber to all of the DSLAMs you're suggesting get installed?
(1) Most DSLAMs would not use fiber. Mine doesn't. It's fed through the traditional copper network.
(2) For REMOTE locations greater than 15 miles from the central phone office, they would need to run some fiber. Based upon what I've read, they typically run it across the existing wooden poles. And the cost comes from the Universal Service Fee that has been applied to monthly bills for the last ~80 years.
So it's BROADcast not multicast. The SuperBowl would be transmitted to some fixed channel (say 10.10.10.10) and everybody who wants to watch would tune to that IP address.
That does sound feasible. Basically a modernized version of how TV works (tune to channel 10 and watch the game). So why doesn't it exist yet?
In my 100 meter zone (basically a 2 football field-wide circle), I have 7000 people per square mile. I have no clue how that translates to a circle two football fields wide, but even if it's only 100 people, it would still be two channels == 40 Mb/s == only 0.4 Mbit per person's TV Band/whitespace Device
THERE IS NO SPACE BETWEEN CHANNELS. Channel 8 occupies 180-186 MHz. Channel 9 occupied 186 to 172 MHz.
Do you see any space between?
Gott in Himmel! How the hell did you earn Bachelor of Science degree? You know *nothing* about basic radio broadcast or EM spectrum usage. Nothing. Which is fine - ignorance is acceptable. But I (and others) have told you time and time and time again THERE IS NO SPACE BETWEEN CHANNELS and still you refuse to hear what better-educated people are telling you. Like a stubborn mule.
Your college professor must have been beating his head against the wall, when he was trying to teach you. You probably refused to hear him.
THERE IS NO SPACE BETWEEN CHANNELS. Channel 8 occupies 180-186 MHz. Channel 9 occupies 186 to 172 MHz.
Do you see any space between?
Gott in Himmel! Ignorance is fine - but I (and others) have told you time and time and time again THERE IS NO SPACE BETWEEN CHANNELS and still you refuse to hear. God. Your college professor must have been beating his head against the wall, when he was trying to teach you.
I don't want tv shows/movies/news LOCKED UP behind a paywall (where you have to subscribe to Comcast or ATTT Wireless to gain access to the programming). The FCC has a plan right now, endorsed by our president, to shrink TV from 50 to 25 channels. It used to be 83 channels but they keep nibbling-away piece after piece.
The same way RIAA/MPAA is using the ACTA treaty to nibble-away your right to backup your personal CD/DVDs. In another five years I fully expect broadcast TV won't exist at all.... they'll remove the final 25 channels.
Just because *I* can't see a channel does not mean it's not being used for other purposes. For example I can't see Channel 7, but my neighbors ten miles to the east can.
Therefore channel 7 is NOT available for TV Band/whitespace Device usage in this spot. Ditto all the other channels. In fact the Official FCC Whitespace Database shows only *2* channels open 43 and 47 - but also forbid their use because they lie adjacent to existing TV stations.
>>>I don't know of any market where all 51 channels are being used.
Yes you do.
Right here where I'm located (north Maryland). All 51 channels are assigned and used by TV stations, with overlap from DC, Baltimore, Harrisburg, and Philadelphia. The only one that's not occupied is 37 but that too is unusable by TV Band/whitespace Devices, because it's reserved for radio-astronomy.
>>>Wait, so is it every four channels occupied in a market or every channel 2 - 51?
DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Harrisburg is, in essence, one giant broadcast area. They all have to share the same 50 channels. Each city gets about 12-13 but all 50 are viewable by any single home, due to the overlap between cities. Using your hypothetical example:
22 and 26 == DC 23 and 27 == Baltimore 24 and 28 == Harrisburg 25 and 29 == Philadelphia
And so on. All of these channels are "occupied" in this region, broadcasting video 24 hours a day. There's no empty channels for TV Band/whitespace Devices.
>>>I would lose 3 stations but a total of 10 channels
Based on the stations you listed, you would lose the following programs due to TV Band/whitespace Devices broadcasting on channels 27, 31, and 51. And yeah that does suck.
NBC thisTV (movies) TBN Church Channel JCTV (music videos) Smile of a Child (kids) Enlace (more kids programming) ION IONlife Qubo (toons)
Copied from another forum: "I checked the showmywhitespace database for my location and then found that it doesn't show correct results for my son's location North of Temecula CA (70-mi SE from Mt Wilson, N of L.A.), which is his ONLY source for network programs. It shows ALL channels being "free" for WSD, even though they aren't. First tip-off the database is hozed..."
Same with my results showing a bunch of channels as "free" even though I regularly watch TV programs on those channels, which means I'll have TV Band Devices broadcasting over top shows/sports/news that I'm trying to watch. Grrr. This is a typical government cockup.
>>>My observations about Fox News were coincidental to the discussion at hand
Again more backpeddling. Here's what you ACTUALLY said: "Commodore64_love agreed to the contract, and has no one to blame but himself if the contract did not protect [Commodore64_love's] rights. Personal responsibility is something that [Fox News viewers] seem to only want for other people. When it comes to their own life, they blame everyone but themselves for their problems, and they fantasize about utterly destroying anyone who slights them in the least."
The noun phrase [Fox News viewers] connects to the antecedent noun [Commodore64_love]. You were slamming C64 not some nebulous crowd of people. You must think Slashdot Readers are stupid, if you think we can't connect the obvious dots. .
>>>he is vindictive because he fantasized about putting kiddie porn >>>commodore64_love fantasized about putting kiddie porn
And now you're a fucking, fucking LIAR. I, commodore64_love, said nothing of the kind. Jackass. Do you know where *I* see vindictive behavior the most? It's among the Democrats and their hate-filled soliloquys. Like the anti-Fox News, anti-republican rant that YOU posted. .
Slashdot Mirror
>>>No part of the USF goes towards broadband Internet access.
No not yet, but if I was a Congress or State politician my "DSL for Everyone" law would reappropriate those USF funds towards the DSL upgrade.
.
>>>DSLAMs are installed in the central offices, not the neighborhoods
I've researched this (unlike you apparently) and in rural communities the DSLAM is hung directly off a pole, with a fiber optic feeding it. Perhaps not the greatest solution, but it does eliminate the need to hire millions of diggers to install a million miles of fiber over twenty years time. DSL is the fast, cheap, and effective answer because 99.99% of Americans already have the necessary lines running into their homes.
And for your claim that DSL is not the answer, you once again demonstrate your ignorance. The 2nd fastest nation in the world is Japan, and 95% of their internet is based upon DSL. If it can work for them, it can work for us too.
.
>>>Where are you getting 15 miles from, too? What is it, 256Kbps at that distance?
No 768k. Which is 15-30 times faster than what most rural users currently have, and therefore a worthwhile goal rather than the current "do nothing" approach we've been doing (i.e. leaving rural users at 28-56 k).
>>>>>broadcast TV which delivers a gross bitrate of 30 Megabits every second
>>
>> Wrong, American TV broadcast is max 19.39Mb/s
Wrong. I said GROSS bitrate. So maybe you should read more carefully before you bitch at someone like..... well, a bitch. ;-) My sentence as written is correct, with one minor correction: "Broadcast TV delivers a gross bitrate of [~]30 Megabits every second."
>>>there are no restrictions on modulation schemes for these devices
Yeah nice try, but there ARE real world limits ("You cannae break the laws of phyiscs!" to quote Scotty). Just as 4 kilohertz phone lines have a real-world limit of 56 kbit/s so too does wireless communication have a limit.
The FCC tried a 16VSB modulation that doubled the bitrate to approximately 40 Mbit/s, but it failed. There was too much noise and it corrupted the broadcast data. And even if a miracle occurred and you did manage to achieve 40 Mbit/s per channel with your TV Band/whitespace Device, my area still only has two open channels.
For the 100 people I mentioned before, that's still only 0.8 Mbit/s each.
Dolby B cassettes can achieve signal-to-noise ratio of 80 db... just shy of the 90 db of CD. (Of course with today's volume compression most CDs barely exceed 20 dB volume change.)
Chrome/metal cassettes have a frequency response of 20-24,000 hertz, which exceeds the 20,000 limit of CD.
>>>CFLs are rated between 6-15k hours of lifetime
Bullshit. If CFLs actually lasted that long, mine would not have died in less then 12 months (about 3 hours per day usage). That's between 1-2 times as long as a regular bulb lasts, so the CFL just wasted my money ($3.00 versus 25 cents for a normal bulb).
H.R. 6144, the Better Use of Light Bulbs Act. - it repeals Subtitle B of Title III of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 that made incandescent bulbs illegal. It also saves American factories from being closed and workers put out of work, due to this banning. The ALF-CIO website goes into further detail: http://screwthatbulb.org/
Of course my main motive is that I simply hate CFLs.
They are as unreliable as eMachines.
>>>Back in the late [80s], that was premium service.
Fixed that for you. 9600 bit/second speed was available on BBSes if you were willing to pay 5-10 extra/month. That's why I corrected your sentence. - By the late 90s 33,600 was standard with 56,000 just released (1998).
As you can see from my signature I obviously prefer HD Radio
(1) It's free
(2) It has CD quality sound
(3) The HD2 and HD3 subchannels are commercial free (yay!)
(4) It's familiar. I can continue listening to the same Talk AM and Music FM stations I've always heard, even as I move from analog to digital. Plus I gain a whole new range of HD2/HD3 stations, effectively quadrupling my choices.
(5) It's free.
I was thinking something different:
Even if China's government did hack my account and discover some horrible thing I did, so what? I'm 10,000 miles away and they cannot touch me. This is similar to how I laugh at New York government's attempts to tax my ebay sales..... "Okay fine I owe you about $100 for 8% tax. Now I'd like to see you try to collect it when I live 500 miles away."
Governments are virtually powerless outside their own boundaries.
>>>The energy is the issue
Yeah but how much energy is saved when I have to make a special trip in my Car to carry the Burned-Out CFL to a special recycling center (due to mercury content). Benjamin Franklin has a saying: "Penny wise and pound foolish." This is the same deal where you're saving a few watts of power and then burning-up kilowatts on disposal costs.
The incandescent would save more energy overall, because it can just be tossed with all the other garbage and doesnt need special (read: energy expensive) handling.
>>>I can imagine an iPhone user grinding his teeth waiting for a typical media-intensive webpage to load at 9600 baud
Wow that's damn slow. Even an old-fashioned phone connection is faster (53,000 bits per second)
Yeah okay. And how many iPads have 18 db Transmitting Antennas attached to them? Or could handle the required 20,000 watt power output without draining their battery to empty in 2-3 minutes?
My original point, that iPads will not be receiving or transmitting across 50 miles, still stands. Their milliwatt transmitting output would never make it that far.
As for line-of-sight: Not quite true.
Both VHF and UHF have the ability to bend around the curve of the earth, so if you jacked up the power high enough (i.e. millions of watts for VHF), you could reach 1000s of miles. That is how early VHF TV broadcasts were able to be seen all the way from England to New York City, and vice-versa. Then the scientists learned to dial back the power to limit the reach to just 100 miles or less.
I mentioned WPVI-6 as having boosted from ~5000 to ~20,000 watts which extended their range all the way from Philly to Baltimore. i.e. Double what they had. If they increased it to 1 million watts, they'd probably be receivable as far away as Ohio, and without any need to change their current antenna height. This is similar to how you sometimes hear VHF FM Radio across multiple states - most of the power "escapes" into space but enough bends around the earth that it can be heard on the ground.
That's what they do in the UK - provide free television by satellite. I wish we had this in the US, Mexico, and Canada but so far neither Dish, Directv, or any other company has offered it:
http://www.freeview.co.uk/
>>>And who's going to pay to lay all of the fiber to all of the DSLAMs you're suggesting get installed?
(1) Most DSLAMs would not use fiber. Mine doesn't. It's fed through the traditional copper network.
(2) For REMOTE locations greater than 15 miles from the central phone office, they would need to run some fiber. Based upon what I've read, they typically run it across the existing wooden poles. And the cost comes from the Universal Service Fee that has been applied to monthly bills for the last ~80 years.
So it's BROADcast not multicast. The SuperBowl would be transmitted to some fixed channel (say 10.10.10.10) and everybody who wants to watch would tune to that IP address.
That does sound feasible. Basically a modernized version of how TV works (tune to channel 10 and watch the game). So why doesn't it exist yet?
Theaveng must live in a densely packed city.
In my 100 meter zone (basically a 2 football field-wide circle), I have 7000 people per square mile. I have no clue how that translates to a circle two football fields wide, but even if it's only 100 people, it would still be two channels == 40 Mb/s == only 0.4 Mbit per person's TV Band/whitespace Device
Ooops. That last post was meant for someone else. Sorry mcgrew
THERE IS NO SPACE BETWEEN CHANNELS. Channel 8 occupies 180-186 MHz. Channel 9 occupied 186 to 172 MHz.
Do you see any space between?
Gott in Himmel! How the hell did you earn Bachelor of Science degree? You know *nothing* about basic radio broadcast or EM spectrum usage. Nothing. Which is fine - ignorance is acceptable. But I (and others) have told you time and time and time again THERE IS NO SPACE BETWEEN CHANNELS and still you refuse to hear what better-educated people are telling you. Like a stubborn mule.
Your college professor must have been beating his head against the wall, when he was trying to teach you. You probably refused to hear him.
THERE IS NO SPACE BETWEEN CHANNELS. Channel 8 occupies 180-186 MHz. Channel 9 occupies 186 to 172 MHz.
Do you see any space between?
Gott in Himmel! Ignorance is fine - but I (and others) have told you time and time and time again THERE IS NO SPACE BETWEEN CHANNELS and still you refuse to hear. God. Your college professor must have been beating his head against the wall, when he was trying to teach you.
P.S.
I don't want tv shows/movies/news LOCKED UP behind a paywall (where you have to subscribe to Comcast or ATTT Wireless to gain access to the programming). The FCC has a plan right now, endorsed by our president, to shrink TV from 50 to 25 channels. It used to be 83 channels but they keep nibbling-away piece after piece.
The same way RIAA/MPAA is using the ACTA treaty to nibble-away your right to backup your personal CD/DVDs. In another five years I fully expect broadcast TV won't exist at all.... they'll remove the final 25 channels.
Just because *I* can't see a channel does not mean it's not being used for other purposes. For example I can't see Channel 7, but my neighbors ten miles to the east can.
Therefore channel 7 is NOT available for TV Band/whitespace Device usage in this spot. Ditto all the other channels. In fact the Official FCC Whitespace Database shows only *2* channels open 43 and 47 - but also forbid their use because they lie adjacent to existing TV stations.
So basically: none are open.
>>>I don't know of any market where all 51 channels are being used.
Yes you do.
Right here where I'm located (north Maryland). All 51 channels are assigned and used by TV stations, with overlap from DC, Baltimore, Harrisburg, and Philadelphia. The only one that's not occupied is 37 but that too is unusable by TV Band/whitespace Devices, because it's reserved for radio-astronomy.
>>>Wait, so is it every four channels occupied in a market or every channel 2 - 51?
DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Harrisburg is, in essence, one giant broadcast area. They all have to share the same 50 channels. Each city gets about 12-13 but all 50 are viewable by any single home, due to the overlap between cities. Using your hypothetical example:
22 and 26 == DC
23 and 27 == Baltimore
24 and 28 == Harrisburg
25 and 29 == Philadelphia
And so on. All of these channels are "occupied" in this region, broadcasting video 24 hours a day. There's no empty channels for TV Band/whitespace Devices.
>>>I would lose 3 stations but a total of 10 channels
Based on the stations you listed, you would lose the following programs due to TV Band/whitespace Devices broadcasting on channels 27, 31, and 51. And yeah that does suck.
NBC
thisTV (movies)
TBN
Church Channel
JCTV (music videos)
Smile of a Child (kids)
Enlace (more kids programming)
ION
IONlife
Qubo (toons)
Copied from another forum: "I checked the showmywhitespace database for my location and then found that it doesn't show correct results for my son's location North of Temecula CA (70-mi SE from Mt Wilson, N of L.A.), which is his ONLY source for network programs. It shows ALL channels being "free" for WSD, even though they aren't. First tip-off the database is hozed..."
Continued here: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1048951&page=7
Same with my results showing a bunch of channels as "free" even though I regularly watch TV programs on those channels, which means I'll have TV Band Devices broadcasting over top shows/sports/news that I'm trying to watch. Grrr. This is a typical government cockup.
>>>My observations about Fox News were coincidental to the discussion at hand
Again more backpeddling. Here's what you ACTUALLY said: "Commodore64_love agreed to the contract, and has no one to blame but himself if the contract did not protect [Commodore64_love's] rights. Personal responsibility is something that [Fox News viewers] seem to only want for other people. When it comes to their own life, they blame everyone but themselves for their problems, and they fantasize about utterly destroying anyone who slights them in the least."
The noun phrase [Fox News viewers] connects to the antecedent noun [Commodore64_love]. You were slamming C64 not some nebulous crowd of people. You must think Slashdot Readers are stupid, if you think we can't connect the obvious dots.
.
>>>he is vindictive because he fantasized about putting kiddie porn
>>>commodore64_love fantasized about putting kiddie porn
And now you're a fucking, fucking LIAR. I, commodore64_love, said nothing of the kind. Jackass. Do you know where *I* see vindictive behavior the most? It's among the Democrats and their hate-filled soliloquys. Like the anti-Fox News, anti-republican rant that YOU posted.
.