At the frequencies in use no LTE is "wide coverage". That's why there are so many cell towers all over the place. Just as "many hands make light work", "many cell towers make wide coverage".
The LTE-U small cell would not be able to transmit at power levels higher than is allowed by the FCC,
That power level should be 0, or as close to it as possible under the unintentional radiator standards of commercial electronics.
But so what? You put one "small cell" here, you put another one there, you put another one next to that, and eventually you're covering a broad area with signals in an already overpopulated public unlicensed band. Who cares if it takes one or one hundred Qualcomm systems to blanket an area and make WiFi unusable for the private individual? Pretending that there will only ever be one system and it will only ever be in one place away from all private users is just pathetic. And factor in that the LTE-U protocol will not LBT and has a shorter holdoff and you have a cancer.
But where it does have coverage, it'll provide additional capacity boost that improves the UX for all users.
Yes, all CELL CUSTOMER users, but at the expense of the private citizen already using that band. And the correct way to improve capacity is to reduce the footprint of the existing cell site and reuse the frequencies by installing more of them. A hundred micro-cells using your existing licensed frequencies will provide a lot more service than one cell covering the same area. You DO NOT "improve cell system capacity" by sucking the unlicensed spectrum away from the existing users. You don't need to.
Oh, but it would cost more to do it the right way, so that way is impossible.
It offers greater network capacity, and thus by extension, better user throughputs.
For the cellular data customer. It does this at the expense of the private citizen using unlicensed spectrum for his personal WiFi router. This is "better user throughputs" in Qualcom-speak, being spoken by a Qualcom employee who is probably being paid to post here.
Behind my TV? RTFM. I said the actual modem/router that provides the Wi-Fi signal.
Unlike a lightbulb affixed to the wall with a handy reflector behind it to direct its "signal" in the desired direction and the receiver is completely passive, a useful WiFi system consists of at least two parts: the router and the device with which it is communicating.
Your router may be out in the open where you can put a cute box with craftwork art on it to shield it from interfering signals, but the WiFi dongle on the TV will be where the TV is. The WiFi antenna for the cellphone will be somewhere in the cellphone. The WiFi antenna for the tablet will be somewhere in the tablet. Trying to apply the correct amount of "tinfoil" to each client for the WiFi router will cause more interference than it solves, just as wearing your tinfoil hat is an insufficient solution to the alien brain scanning waves you are subject to.
Both ends of an RF radio link suffer when there is interference. The WiFi router is not special in this regard.
The correct solution is to not allow commercial cellular services to usurp unlicensed spectrum for their own private use. Even if they were to be required to follow standards for channel sharing (which they are not, and have chosen not to) they are an extra burden on an already overflowing band. Go elsewhere, young man.
Unlicensed spectrum is already used by many entities for commercial services.
"And" is a conjunction that means both clauses apply.
All those "commercial services" you trot out as excuses for allowing LTE-U to use the same bandwidth are different in one very significant way: they ALL obey the Part 15 rules for the use of the spectrum. Those cable modem WiFi hotspots that are popping up don't have 100' towers and special high-power transmitters. Those Zigbee etc. systems for power monitoring etc. play well with others.
The other commercial difference is that those systems you talk about are either hidden completely from the user (power company, e.g.) or are sold explicitly as WiFi. A cellular company selling "LTE-U" services will not be telling the customers that they are now using public airspace with an existing body of both licensed and unlicensed users, and that the customer may find his phone unusable because of the four neighbors who have WiFi access points. The customer is going to expect the service he paid for, and he's going to be defrauded.
Cellular services are covered by a different Part. Allowing their services to mix with the existing overloaded 2.4GHz users is a mistake and needs to be stopped. They cannot fairly make use of the WiFi bands, especially when they deliberately design systems that do not follow the same fairness rules and do not bother to LBT. The article didn't put it this way, but LTE-U is grabbing its chunk of airtime first and saying the hell with anyone else who might have been transmitting.
Put them someplace else. Or wind up explaining to the customers why the fancy new LTE-U system they paid money to access won't work because other legal users of the spectrum are now using systems that override LTE-U.
Who said anything about drowning out other people's?
I realize that reading the fine article is a lost art here, but it was even mentioned in the summary, for God's sake. Here, from TFA:
Unsurprisingly, several outside experiments that pitted standard LTE technology or "simulated LTE-U" technology, in the case of one in-depth Google study, against Wi-Fi transmitters on the same frequencies found that LTE drastically reduced the throughput on the Wi-Fi connection.
What do you think "reduce the throughput" means? And what happens when there is more than one tower nearby? And when more and more phones start showing up there?
That's out of hundreds of MHz of available bandwidth in the unlicensed bands.
The 2.4GHz WiFi band is about 100MHz wide (not "hundreds), and there are only FOUR non-overlapping 22MHz channels in that band. That means that anyone with a powerful signal on channel 1 will interfere with others who are using channels 1, 2, 3, 4 and to some extent, 5. Channel 6 overlaps channels 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9 and 10. So, just FOUR LTE-U 22MHz signals could blanket the entire 2.4GHz WiFi band. With each smartphone using two channels...
There would be no need to drown out anyone because (1) it's not technically possible given max LTE bandwidth limitation
You're claiming that it is impossible for a 20MHz LTE-U signal to interfere with a 22MHz WiFi signal. The entire point of TFA is that they have already been show to do so.
and (2) the plentiful spectrum that's available in the band.
100MHz is not "plentiful". One LTE-U signal can interfere with up to 9 WiFi channels. You ignore the fact that the LTE-U signal will be more powerful than a standard WiFi signal (because it has to cover a larger area) and is using a preferential sharing protocol that steals access from other users.
Additionally, if and when LTE-U has to share the channel with an existing Wi-Fi access points, it *deterministically* takes up 50% of the air time.
And where does it get this "air time" when the existing WiFi users are already using it?
LTE-U is not required to Listen Before Talk, so how will it know there is any access point in range? From TFA:
"Because they don't check for other users that are using the bandwidth first, [LTE-U transmitters] can have the effect of slowing or degrading other unlicensed traffic that's out there," Berenbroick told Network World.
So not only does the LTE-U system NOT listen for anyone already using the channel, because the user will be lower power the LTE-U system probably won't HEAR anyone if it DID listen. A powerful transmitter on a high tower won't necessarily hear the existing WiFi system it is drowning out, but it can easily drown out that system because of its power and location.
And BTW, repeated testing has shown that is works, and works better, than sharing mechanisms in Wi-Fi.
The question is not whether the LTE-U system works better (because clearly it does -- for LTE-U), but whether it can peacefully and fairly co-exist with existing WiFi systems. There it fails.
You claim there are "hundreds of MHz" available. Why does LTE-U have to use unlicensed spectrum in an already crowded band? Answer: it doesn't. Go somewhere else.
Whoever in the FCC is allowing this to happen needs to step up and kill it. Pitting LTE-U against standard WiFi, and it being a commercial service, should be unthinkable.
I think it is time for amateurs (hams) to step up and develop more 2.4GHz applications for networking. It would be an interesting side-effect if those apps happened to destroy LTE-U performance at the same time. As TFA points out, the "fairness" algorithm is at the discretion of the user, not mandated by law, so the carriers would have no problem if the hams develop a system that is fair to them but screws the carriers, right?
Who has links into Meshnet, and can you get them doing that? I'll happily devote a couple of old Linksys routers to Meshnet for the right cause.
You obviously have no idea about how comics are produced.
Fan conventions ("cons") have nothing to do with how comics are produced. The producers of the product are vastly outnumbered by the fans. The fan cons are held not for the trade, but for the fans, so that is normal. Yes, there are trade-oriented conventions, but that's not the "con" in context here.
Go to a con sometime.... you will encounter every geek stereotype you can imagine. While one might legitimately argue that the characters on BBT are exaggerations of what the the average geek is probably like, if what I encounter whenever I go to a con is any indication at all, I would say they are probably not more than a standard deviation or so away from the norm,
People who attend cons are self-selected groups, and trying to determine a "norm" from such a group would be a mistake. It is also a positive feedback loop, where edge-of-the-curve geeks flock because they create an environment where they're comfortable.
It's like going to a smoking lounge in an airport, counting heads, and saying that "smoking is the norm".
DARPA-funded research into on-chip liquid cooling has resulted in a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) liquid-cooled device that can operate at 24 degrees Celsius, versus 60 degrees Celsius for an equivalent air-cooled device.
So do most FPGAs need an external heater to get them up to 60C before they'll operate, or don't they all work at 24C?
Or do they mean that this one WILL only REACH 24C WHILE running?
Then why aren't you calling for the same (or, really, much more) stringent regulations on the millions of casual noobs, instead of the comparative handful of people who happen to regularly use the technology as part of the bucket of professional tools?
What makes you think I'm not calling for regulations on noobs? The fact that I'm explaining why commercial pilots have more stringent regulations on them doesn't mean I'm not in favor of regulations on others, too.
The vast majority of reckless behavior involving these devices is at the hands of idiotic beginners
That doesn't mean there shouldn't be regulations on the commercial pilots.
What about people who live near an airport? Are they entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of their property?
You mean people who bought a house next to an airport because it was cheap and then complain that there is noise from airplanes? Like the people who buy houses next to the railroad tracks and then complain about trains going by?
Hopefully a combination of laws and common sense will apply to drones: basically "thou shall not annoy your neighbors with great regularity".
As common sense, that's not a bad rule. As a law it would be atrocious. I'm annoyed by the cooking smells coming from my next door neighbor's house. Should that be illegal?
The disparity in our opinions are likely lead to stupid laws like having to have a flagman 50 feet in front of a horseless carriage.
You're right. In this analogy, your position would be that any horseless carriage on the street is violating your right to peaceful enjoyment of the street and that no horseless carriages should be allowed anywhere but on someone's own private property because they're scary.
I'm certain there can be compromise, but it is doubtful if you continue to insist you have a right to invade my space.
I'm certain that no compromise is possible as long as you keep trying to claim every molecule of air over your head as your private airspace and that any incursion whatsoever is stripping you of your basic right to life. As long as you keep using phrases like "invade [your] space" when you are talking about the airspace over that tiny part of the planet that you claim ownership to, then no progress can be made.
This issue has been long decided. The FAA regulates from the surface up, not from some arbitrary 500' limit that you want to impose. An aircraft in the space over your head is not destroying your life.
This thread started with "They believe their right to walk into traffic" so OF COURSE it's about people being run over.
I didn't say it wasn't about people being run over. I said it wasn't about drivers claiming the right to run people over just because they were violating traffic laws. Please read the words before you reply.
I'll answer your question because it doesn't have the inane hyperbole of the previous guy.
It's different for the same reason that the guy who charges you $50 for a short flight from your local county airport to the nearest big city so you can catch an airline flight has to have a commercial pilot license while your friend who does it as a favor to you doesn't. And why the guy who is flying that commercial airline aircraft has an even higher level of certification and ongoing standards.
That reason is that there is a financial incentive to the pilot and profit involved. Lots of people here rant on a regular basis about the awful profit motives of greedy capitalists and how money is the goal, but here we're turning a blind eye to that.
The guy you pay to do your gutter inspection doesn't get paid if he doesn't do it. He gets paid more if he does ten in a day than if he does one in a day. He's got more incentive to overlook safety issues. Is the aircraft completely airworthy? Are there weather or other hazards that are being dismissed because "it will probably work out ok?"
Second, as a consumer, it is assumed that you don't know his skills or abilities and are trusting that he's got them. You know your own skills, and have a good idea of your friend's, but you have no way of judging a stranger's piloting skills until it is too late.
That's why it is established legal precedent that a commercial pilot of any aircraft has a higher level of training and certification than a recreational pilot is required to.
And why is my own use, or that other safety-minded, business-reputation-at-stake adult's use of a small quad
What makes you think the profit motive hasn't degraded the "safety-minded" nature of the guy you're paying to do the job? And "business reputation"? Just how much do you really know about the internal operation of a business? How many shoddy workmen are still in business -- and if your belief that a "business reputation" would protect you from them, how are they still in business?
a twelve year old noobie kid who says, "Sure, mister, I'll get some pictures of your rain gutters for free!
It is your decision based on your knowledge of the twelve year old kid, and YOUR RESPONSIBILITY if things go wrong. When you pay someone you 1) don't know them from Adam and 2) expect them to be the ones who take responsibility for any problems.
the guy who does it every day and cares about his reputation
If every businessman cared about "his reputation" and that "reputation" had any enforcement properties attached to it, we wouldn't need laws about commercial service providers at all, and there would be no shoddy or incompetent workmen selling services to the unsuspecting public.
And even airplanes are allowed to operate below 500' when landing or taking off
But when does that happen?
At least twice each flight for every flight of every aircraft.
I highly doubt anyone noticing that you're trying to take off or land in your backyard (is that a thing? Is that just for ultralights or something?)
No. It is for "aircraft".
is going to hang around in a position that gets in your way.
The fact remains, an aircraft that lands or takes off out of your neighbor's property is very unlikely to have reached 500' AGL by the time it crosses the property line, and therefore there are times when even manned, powered aircraft can fly below 500' over someone's property without their permission LEGALLY.
I think the big disconnect here is between those of us who believe we are entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of our property and those who feel they are entitled to fly there drones wherever and whenever they choose.
No, I think the disconnect in what you are arguing is that you equate "no drones ever" with "peaceful enjoyment of your property", whereas most people realize that a drone 100' above your head doesn't automatically mean your peaceful enjoyment is prevented. Or a drone that wanders 10' over your property line while being used to take pictures of the next door neighbor's house doesn't ruin your entire life and make your property unusable.
And most people realize that the airspace is governed at a higher level than "homeowner" because there are valid uses of that airspace and having homeowners able to prohibit all uses of the air over their heads would be a stupid and ridiculous way to manage that space.
As much as hate government regulation, this is one of those cases where it is necessary.
You only think it is necessary because you are a dog in a manger.
You need to get over the idea that the FAA does not regulate the airspace from the surface up. They do. That battle is long over. It's well entrenched in the FARs. You saying that someone should never have any right to fly anywhere over your property with their aircraft is a battle you have lost.
Are there really people here who want to pretend they have a right to run people down just because those people broke a road rule?
It is hyperbole to leap from a statement about who has the right of way to a statement about "run[ing] people down just because". I don't know anyone who is saying that anyone should be run down just because they broke a road rule. What they are saying is that people WILL be run down because they expect to break the laws of physics. And they're saying that traffic control devices (like "Walk/Don't Walk" signals) do apply to pedestrians and thus they don't always have the right of way.
Allowing people on foot to reclaim their city from the motor car will make cities a better place.
I expect SF is like many cities in the world: the drivers of those automobiles are also citizens and residents of the city and therefore have just as much right to "reclaim" the city from the pedestrians.
I say that to point out that the pedestrians are not the only people in the city and they don't automatically get to set the policies for everyone else.
All things being equal, does a car have a longer stopping distance than a pedestrian?
All things aren't equal, and that's why it takes a longer distance for a car to stop than a pedestrian. If a pedestrian weighed 3000 pounds, had four rubber tires for traction, and walked at 20 MPH, then he'd have about as long a stopping distance as a car.
But he doesn't. And his turning radius is much much smaller. He can change direction from walking along the sidewalk to walking into the crosswalk much faster than a car can make a left or right turn and in less space. He can go from "not in the crosswalk and not even looking like he wants to cross" to "in the crosswalk" in a fraction of a second, too. What's really fun is when he is "in the crosswalk, standing and talking to his friends that are still on the sidewalk".
You as a driver, have a responsibility to others when operating your machine in the public space...
And you, as a pedestrian, have a responsibility to obey the laws, even the laws of physics. Saying that a driver isn't liable when a pedestrian steps illegally into the street (entering a crosswalk when the controlling signal prohibits it is illegal) is not the same as saying he has carte blanche to run someone over. There is legal liability and there is, sadly, a dead pedestrian who participated in his own demise.
The statement that "pedestrians always have the right of way" is simply not true, so using it as the starting point of a driver education campaign is dishonest at best. For example, the pedestrian who ignores the "don't walk" signal and starts to cross anyway does NOT have the right of way. That doesn't mean you should go out of your way to run him down to teach him a lesson, but it does mean that when he does it willfully and ignores the 18-wheeler that's four feet from the crosswalk the trucker is not liable for the results.
The fact that every intersection is a potential unmarked cross walk also seems a little bit insane.
This has been Oregon law for many years. Every intersection has a crosswalk. It doesn't need to be painted to be there. Unfortunately, most people (at least "many") don't know this, and don't know how to use those crosswalks, so there is an effort now to put in even MORE crosswalks. They just put in a marked, lighted crosswalk about 30' away from two others (the two at the closest intersection) and 50' away from another pair (the second closest intersection.) If you want to turn left onto the closest street, you have to slam on the breaks just after passing the pedestrian island to pull over into the multi-use lane to make your turn.
Isn't the logic behind it that you're supposed to slow down anyway while pulling into any intersection, to make sure you won't intersect with traffic coming from the sides?
No. That's silly. A five lane road is usually a major route, and forcing people to slow down for every intersecting two land road is just lunacy. If you need people to stop for the intersecting roads, you put stop signs or signals there. The stop signs on the side streets are how you keep those cars from "intersecting" with traffic on the main road.
Both these companies could quickly come up with policies that would satisfy most regulatory laws. Google could probably have something the FAA could use as a blueprint out within a few weeks;
Let me make sure I understand this: you are all in favor of corporate lobbyists with dogs in the fight writing laws that apply to them? I just want to make sure you understand that's what you're saying here.
I think we need two different "classes" (at minimum) for this, commercial vs. civil.
FAA has already created three categories: recreational, commercial, and public agency use.
The conspiracy theorist in me says the FAA is dragging their feet because right now that feel they have total power over this,
The FAA isn't "dragging their feet", they're being prudent in not creating laws that may have seriously bad side effects or not result in the effects that are desired. They just don't know yet how unmanned and manned aircraft will mix in the national airspace. We're in the middle of a transition from radar guidance to ADS-B and NexGen aviation services, so we're talking about predicting how unmanned systems will interact in an airspace system that doesn't yet exist.
And that includes finding out how the non-ADS-B equipped manned aircraft fit in and how their existence is going to impact the system as a whole.
That new system won't be in place until 2020 when the ADS-B mandate goes into effect. Creating a bunch of laws that will just have to be replaced in a couple of years is a waste of everyone's time, and unsafe. It's bad enough when FAA changes the rules on manned pilots and they don't get the word, imagine whole classes of recreational drone pilots who don't even know the FAA is involved.
Cases I've read seem to indicate the government as usurped all but around 500ft above my home.
If you know the rules, then you know they control aircraft from the surface up. Try hopping in your Cessna 172 and flying just 200' AGL and then tell the FAA that they don't regulate what you're doing...
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LTE-U is not a wide coverage technology.
At the frequencies in use no LTE is "wide coverage". That's why there are so many cell towers all over the place. Just as "many hands make light work", "many cell towers make wide coverage".
The LTE-U small cell would not be able to transmit at power levels higher than is allowed by the FCC,
That power level should be 0, or as close to it as possible under the unintentional radiator standards of commercial electronics.
But so what? You put one "small cell" here, you put another one there, you put another one next to that, and eventually you're covering a broad area with signals in an already overpopulated public unlicensed band. Who cares if it takes one or one hundred Qualcomm systems to blanket an area and make WiFi unusable for the private individual? Pretending that there will only ever be one system and it will only ever be in one place away from all private users is just pathetic. And factor in that the LTE-U protocol will not LBT and has a shorter holdoff and you have a cancer.
But where it does have coverage, it'll provide additional capacity boost that improves the UX for all users.
Yes, all CELL CUSTOMER users, but at the expense of the private citizen already using that band. And the correct way to improve capacity is to reduce the footprint of the existing cell site and reuse the frequencies by installing more of them. A hundred micro-cells using your existing licensed frequencies will provide a lot more service than one cell covering the same area. You DO NOT "improve cell system capacity" by sucking the unlicensed spectrum away from the existing users. You don't need to.
Oh, but it would cost more to do it the right way, so that way is impossible.
It offers greater network capacity, and thus by extension, better user throughputs.
For the cellular data customer. It does this at the expense of the private citizen using unlicensed spectrum for his personal WiFi router. This is "better user throughputs" in Qualcom-speak, being spoken by a Qualcom employee who is probably being paid to post here.
Behind my TV? RTFM. I said the actual modem/router that provides the Wi-Fi signal.
Unlike a lightbulb affixed to the wall with a handy reflector behind it to direct its "signal" in the desired direction and the receiver is completely passive, a useful WiFi system consists of at least two parts: the router and the device with which it is communicating.
Your router may be out in the open where you can put a cute box with craftwork art on it to shield it from interfering signals, but the WiFi dongle on the TV will be where the TV is. The WiFi antenna for the cellphone will be somewhere in the cellphone. The WiFi antenna for the tablet will be somewhere in the tablet. Trying to apply the correct amount of "tinfoil" to each client for the WiFi router will cause more interference than it solves, just as wearing your tinfoil hat is an insufficient solution to the alien brain scanning waves you are subject to.
Both ends of an RF radio link suffer when there is interference. The WiFi router is not special in this regard.
The correct solution is to not allow commercial cellular services to usurp unlicensed spectrum for their own private use. Even if they were to be required to follow standards for channel sharing (which they are not, and have chosen not to) they are an extra burden on an already overflowing band. Go elsewhere, young man.
Unlicensed spectrum is already used by many entities for commercial services.
"And" is a conjunction that means both clauses apply.
All those "commercial services" you trot out as excuses for allowing LTE-U to use the same bandwidth are different in one very significant way: they ALL obey the Part 15 rules for the use of the spectrum. Those cable modem WiFi hotspots that are popping up don't have 100' towers and special high-power transmitters. Those Zigbee etc. systems for power monitoring etc. play well with others.
The other commercial difference is that those systems you talk about are either hidden completely from the user (power company, e.g.) or are sold explicitly as WiFi. A cellular company selling "LTE-U" services will not be telling the customers that they are now using public airspace with an existing body of both licensed and unlicensed users, and that the customer may find his phone unusable because of the four neighbors who have WiFi access points. The customer is going to expect the service he paid for, and he's going to be defrauded.
Cellular services are covered by a different Part. Allowing their services to mix with the existing overloaded 2.4GHz users is a mistake and needs to be stopped. They cannot fairly make use of the WiFi bands, especially when they deliberately design systems that do not follow the same fairness rules and do not bother to LBT. The article didn't put it this way, but LTE-U is grabbing its chunk of airtime first and saying the hell with anyone else who might have been transmitting.
Put them someplace else. Or wind up explaining to the customers why the fancy new LTE-U system they paid money to access won't work because other legal users of the spectrum are now using systems that override LTE-U.
Who said anything about drowning out other people's?
I realize that reading the fine article is a lost art here, but it was even mentioned in the summary, for God's sake. Here, from TFA:
What do you think "reduce the throughput" means? And what happens when there is more than one tower nearby? And when more and more phones start showing up there?
That's out of hundreds of MHz of available bandwidth in the unlicensed bands.
The 2.4GHz WiFi band is about 100MHz wide (not "hundreds), and there are only FOUR non-overlapping 22MHz channels in that band. That means that anyone with a powerful signal on channel 1 will interfere with others who are using channels 1, 2, 3, 4 and to some extent, 5. Channel 6 overlaps channels 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9 and 10. So, just FOUR LTE-U 22MHz signals could blanket the entire 2.4GHz WiFi band. With each smartphone using two channels ...
There would be no need to drown out anyone because (1) it's not technically possible given max LTE bandwidth limitation
You're claiming that it is impossible for a 20MHz LTE-U signal to interfere with a 22MHz WiFi signal. The entire point of TFA is that they have already been show to do so.
and (2) the plentiful spectrum that's available in the band.
100MHz is not "plentiful". One LTE-U signal can interfere with up to 9 WiFi channels. You ignore the fact that the LTE-U signal will be more powerful than a standard WiFi signal (because it has to cover a larger area) and is using a preferential sharing protocol that steals access from other users.
Additionally, if and when LTE-U has to share the channel with an existing Wi-Fi access points, it *deterministically* takes up 50% of the air time.
And where does it get this "air time" when the existing WiFi users are already using it?
LTE-U is not required to Listen Before Talk, so how will it know there is any access point in range? From TFA:
So not only does the LTE-U system NOT listen for anyone already using the channel, because the user will be lower power the LTE-U system probably won't HEAR anyone if it DID listen. A powerful transmitter on a high tower won't necessarily hear the existing WiFi system it is drowning out, but it can easily drown out that system because of its power and location.
And BTW, repeated testing has shown that is works, and works better, than sharing mechanisms in Wi-Fi.
The question is not whether the LTE-U system works better (because clearly it does -- for LTE-U), but whether it can peacefully and fairly co-exist with existing WiFi systems. There it fails.
You claim there are "hundreds of MHz" available. Why does LTE-U have to use unlicensed spectrum in an already crowded band? Answer: it doesn't. Go somewhere else.
I think it is time for amateurs (hams) to step up and develop more 2.4GHz applications for networking. It would be an interesting side-effect if those apps happened to destroy LTE-U performance at the same time. As TFA points out, the "fairness" algorithm is at the discretion of the user, not mandated by law, so the carriers would have no problem if the hams develop a system that is fair to them but screws the carriers, right?
Who has links into Meshnet, and can you get them doing that? I'll happily devote a couple of old Linksys routers to Meshnet for the right cause.
You obviously have no idea about how comics are produced.
Fan conventions ("cons") have nothing to do with how comics are produced. The producers of the product are vastly outnumbered by the fans. The fan cons are held not for the trade, but for the fans, so that is normal. Yes, there are trade-oriented conventions, but that's not the "con" in context here.
Go to a con sometime.... you will encounter every geek stereotype you can imagine. While one might legitimately argue that the characters on BBT are exaggerations of what the the average geek is probably like, if what I encounter whenever I go to a con is any indication at all, I would say they are probably not more than a standard deviation or so away from the norm,
People who attend cons are self-selected groups, and trying to determine a "norm" from such a group would be a mistake. It is also a positive feedback loop, where edge-of-the-curve geeks flock because they create an environment where they're comfortable.
It's like going to a smoking lounge in an airport, counting heads, and saying that "smoking is the norm".
they'd edited it to shreds... It was abysmal.
Once you know how they make sausage, it doesn't taste so good anymore.
DARPA-funded research into on-chip liquid cooling has resulted in a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) liquid-cooled device that can operate at 24 degrees Celsius, versus 60 degrees Celsius for an equivalent air-cooled device.
So do most FPGAs need an external heater to get them up to 60C before they'll operate, or don't they all work at 24C?
Or do they mean that this one WILL only REACH 24C WHILE running?
Then why aren't you calling for the same (or, really, much more) stringent regulations on the millions of casual noobs, instead of the comparative handful of people who happen to regularly use the technology as part of the bucket of professional tools?
What makes you think I'm not calling for regulations on noobs? The fact that I'm explaining why commercial pilots have more stringent regulations on them doesn't mean I'm not in favor of regulations on others, too.
The vast majority of reckless behavior involving these devices is at the hands of idiotic beginners
That doesn't mean there shouldn't be regulations on the commercial pilots.
What about people who live near an airport? Are they entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of their property?
You mean people who bought a house next to an airport because it was cheap and then complain that there is noise from airplanes? Like the people who buy houses next to the railroad tracks and then complain about trains going by?
Hopefully a combination of laws and common sense will apply to drones: basically "thou shall not annoy your neighbors with great regularity".
As common sense, that's not a bad rule. As a law it would be atrocious. I'm annoyed by the cooking smells coming from my next door neighbor's house. Should that be illegal?
Why is it you're assuming that recreational noobs flying once or twice a month are safer than people who use the technology every day? Specifically.
I'm not.
The disparity in our opinions are likely lead to stupid laws like having to have a flagman 50 feet in front of a horseless carriage.
You're right. In this analogy, your position would be that any horseless carriage on the street is violating your right to peaceful enjoyment of the street and that no horseless carriages should be allowed anywhere but on someone's own private property because they're scary.
I'm certain there can be compromise, but it is doubtful if you continue to insist you have a right to invade my space.
I'm certain that no compromise is possible as long as you keep trying to claim every molecule of air over your head as your private airspace and that any incursion whatsoever is stripping you of your basic right to life. As long as you keep using phrases like "invade [your] space" when you are talking about the airspace over that tiny part of the planet that you claim ownership to, then no progress can be made.
This issue has been long decided. The FAA regulates from the surface up, not from some arbitrary 500' limit that you want to impose. An aircraft in the space over your head is not destroying your life.
This thread started with "They believe their right to walk into traffic" so OF COURSE it's about people being run over.
I didn't say it wasn't about people being run over. I said it wasn't about drivers claiming the right to run people over just because they were violating traffic laws. Please read the words before you reply.
how is that Clearly Something Else Entirely?
I'll answer your question because it doesn't have the inane hyperbole of the previous guy.
It's different for the same reason that the guy who charges you $50 for a short flight from your local county airport to the nearest big city so you can catch an airline flight has to have a commercial pilot license while your friend who does it as a favor to you doesn't. And why the guy who is flying that commercial airline aircraft has an even higher level of certification and ongoing standards.
That reason is that there is a financial incentive to the pilot and profit involved. Lots of people here rant on a regular basis about the awful profit motives of greedy capitalists and how money is the goal, but here we're turning a blind eye to that.
The guy you pay to do your gutter inspection doesn't get paid if he doesn't do it. He gets paid more if he does ten in a day than if he does one in a day. He's got more incentive to overlook safety issues. Is the aircraft completely airworthy? Are there weather or other hazards that are being dismissed because "it will probably work out ok?"
Second, as a consumer, it is assumed that you don't know his skills or abilities and are trusting that he's got them. You know your own skills, and have a good idea of your friend's, but you have no way of judging a stranger's piloting skills until it is too late.
That's why it is established legal precedent that a commercial pilot of any aircraft has a higher level of training and certification than a recreational pilot is required to.
And why is my own use, or that other safety-minded, business-reputation-at-stake adult's use of a small quad
What makes you think the profit motive hasn't degraded the "safety-minded" nature of the guy you're paying to do the job? And "business reputation"? Just how much do you really know about the internal operation of a business? How many shoddy workmen are still in business -- and if your belief that a "business reputation" would protect you from them, how are they still in business?
a twelve year old noobie kid who says, "Sure, mister, I'll get some pictures of your rain gutters for free!
It is your decision based on your knowledge of the twelve year old kid, and YOUR RESPONSIBILITY if things go wrong. When you pay someone you 1) don't know them from Adam and 2) expect them to be the ones who take responsibility for any problems.
the guy who does it every day and cares about his reputation
If every businessman cared about "his reputation" and that "reputation" had any enforcement properties attached to it, we wouldn't need laws about commercial service providers at all, and there would be no shoddy or incompetent workmen selling services to the unsuspecting public.
And even airplanes are allowed to operate below 500' when landing or taking off
But when does that happen?
At least twice each flight for every flight of every aircraft.
I highly doubt anyone noticing that you're trying to take off or land in your backyard (is that a thing? Is that just for ultralights or something?)
No. It is for "aircraft".
is going to hang around in a position that gets in your way.
The fact remains, an aircraft that lands or takes off out of your neighbor's property is very unlikely to have reached 500' AGL by the time it crosses the property line, and therefore there are times when even manned, powered aircraft can fly below 500' over someone's property without their permission LEGALLY.
What we actually need is less blind fear.
You got that right.
I think the big disconnect here is between those of us who believe we are entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of our property and those who feel they are entitled to fly there drones wherever and whenever they choose.
No, I think the disconnect in what you are arguing is that you equate "no drones ever" with "peaceful enjoyment of your property", whereas most people realize that a drone 100' above your head doesn't automatically mean your peaceful enjoyment is prevented. Or a drone that wanders 10' over your property line while being used to take pictures of the next door neighbor's house doesn't ruin your entire life and make your property unusable.
And most people realize that the airspace is governed at a higher level than "homeowner" because there are valid uses of that airspace and having homeowners able to prohibit all uses of the air over their heads would be a stupid and ridiculous way to manage that space.
As much as hate government regulation, this is one of those cases where it is necessary.
You only think it is necessary because you are a dog in a manger.
You need to get over the idea that the FAA does not regulate the airspace from the surface up. They do. That battle is long over. It's well entrenched in the FARs. You saying that someone should never have any right to fly anywhere over your property with their aircraft is a battle you have lost.
Are there really people here who want to pretend they have a right to run people down just because those people broke a road rule?
It is hyperbole to leap from a statement about who has the right of way to a statement about "run[ing] people down just because". I don't know anyone who is saying that anyone should be run down just because they broke a road rule. What they are saying is that people WILL be run down because they expect to break the laws of physics. And they're saying that traffic control devices (like "Walk/Don't Walk" signals) do apply to pedestrians and thus they don't always have the right of way.
Allowing people on foot to reclaim their city from the motor car will make cities a better place.
I expect SF is like many cities in the world: the drivers of those automobiles are also citizens and residents of the city and therefore have just as much right to "reclaim" the city from the pedestrians.
I say that to point out that the pedestrians are not the only people in the city and they don't automatically get to set the policies for everyone else.
All things being equal, does a car have a longer stopping distance than a pedestrian?
All things aren't equal, and that's why it takes a longer distance for a car to stop than a pedestrian. If a pedestrian weighed 3000 pounds, had four rubber tires for traction, and walked at 20 MPH, then he'd have about as long a stopping distance as a car.
But he doesn't. And his turning radius is much much smaller. He can change direction from walking along the sidewalk to walking into the crosswalk much faster than a car can make a left or right turn and in less space. He can go from "not in the crosswalk and not even looking like he wants to cross" to "in the crosswalk" in a fraction of a second, too. What's really fun is when he is "in the crosswalk, standing and talking to his friends that are still on the sidewalk".
You as a driver, have a responsibility to others when operating your machine in the public space...
And you, as a pedestrian, have a responsibility to obey the laws, even the laws of physics. Saying that a driver isn't liable when a pedestrian steps illegally into the street (entering a crosswalk when the controlling signal prohibits it is illegal) is not the same as saying he has carte blanche to run someone over. There is legal liability and there is, sadly, a dead pedestrian who participated in his own demise.
The statement that "pedestrians always have the right of way" is simply not true, so using it as the starting point of a driver education campaign is dishonest at best. For example, the pedestrian who ignores the "don't walk" signal and starts to cross anyway does NOT have the right of way. That doesn't mean you should go out of your way to run him down to teach him a lesson, but it does mean that when he does it willfully and ignores the 18-wheeler that's four feet from the crosswalk the trucker is not liable for the results.
The fact that every intersection is a potential unmarked cross walk also seems a little bit insane.
This has been Oregon law for many years. Every intersection has a crosswalk. It doesn't need to be painted to be there. Unfortunately, most people (at least "many") don't know this, and don't know how to use those crosswalks, so there is an effort now to put in even MORE crosswalks. They just put in a marked, lighted crosswalk about 30' away from two others (the two at the closest intersection) and 50' away from another pair (the second closest intersection.) If you want to turn left onto the closest street, you have to slam on the breaks just after passing the pedestrian island to pull over into the multi-use lane to make your turn.
Isn't the logic behind it that you're supposed to slow down anyway while pulling into any intersection, to make sure you won't intersect with traffic coming from the sides?
No. That's silly. A five lane road is usually a major route, and forcing people to slow down for every intersecting two land road is just lunacy. If you need people to stop for the intersecting roads, you put stop signs or signals there. The stop signs on the side streets are how you keep those cars from "intersecting" with traffic on the main road.
Both these companies could quickly come up with policies that would satisfy most regulatory laws. Google could probably have something the FAA could use as a blueprint out within a few weeks;
Let me make sure I understand this: you are all in favor of corporate lobbyists with dogs in the fight writing laws that apply to them? I just want to make sure you understand that's what you're saying here.
I think we need two different "classes" (at minimum) for this, commercial vs. civil.
FAA has already created three categories: recreational, commercial, and public agency use.
The conspiracy theorist in me says the FAA is dragging their feet because right now that feel they have total power over this,
The FAA isn't "dragging their feet", they're being prudent in not creating laws that may have seriously bad side effects or not result in the effects that are desired. They just don't know yet how unmanned and manned aircraft will mix in the national airspace. We're in the middle of a transition from radar guidance to ADS-B and NexGen aviation services, so we're talking about predicting how unmanned systems will interact in an airspace system that doesn't yet exist.
And that includes finding out how the non-ADS-B equipped manned aircraft fit in and how their existence is going to impact the system as a whole.
That new system won't be in place until 2020 when the ADS-B mandate goes into effect. Creating a bunch of laws that will just have to be replaced in a couple of years is a waste of everyone's time, and unsafe. It's bad enough when FAA changes the rules on manned pilots and they don't get the word, imagine whole classes of recreational drone pilots who don't even know the FAA is involved.
Cases I've read seem to indicate the government as usurped all but around 500ft above my home.
If you know the rules, then you know they control aircraft from the surface up. Try hopping in your Cessna 172 and flying just 200' AGL and then tell the FAA that they don't regulate what you're doing...