Comments for ANDREWSEYBOLD.com http://andrewseybold.com Real-World Wireless Intelligence Fri, 13 Jan 2012 20:58:30 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Comment on Wireless University by Here We Go Yet Again! « ANDREWSEYBOLD.com http://andrewseybold.com/events/wireless-university/comment-page-1#comment-228 Here We Go Yet Again! « ANDREWSEYBOLD.com Fri, 13 Jan 2012 20:58:30 +0000 http://clients/andrewseybold.com/?page_id=50#comment-228 [...] Wireless University [...] [...] Wireless University [...]

]]> Comment on Cell Phones and Nature by Public Safety Communications and the U.S. Congress « ANDREWSEYBOLD.com http://andrewseybold.com/2617-cell-phones-and-nature/comment-page-1#comment-227 Public Safety Communications and the U.S. Congress « ANDREWSEYBOLD.com Fri, 13 Jan 2012 00:31:04 +0000 http://andrewseybold.com/?p=2617#comment-227 [...] range of that network or if the network is overcrowded as happens during major events (most recently the earthquake on the east coast followed by the hurricane), the device is useless to the customer. Likewise, if the customer is [...] [...] range of that network or if the network is overcrowded as happens during major events (most recently the earthquake on the east coast followed by the hurricane), the device is useless to the customer. Likewise, if the customer is [...]

]]> Comment on LightSquared: By Hook or Crook by LightSquared: By Hook or Crook « ANDREWSEYBOLD.comGPS for commercial vehicles | GPS for commercial vehicles http://andrewseybold.com/2812-lightsquared-by-hook-or-crook/comment-page-1#comment-226 LightSquared: By Hook or Crook « ANDREWSEYBOLD.comGPS for commercial vehicles | GPS for commercial vehicles Tue, 10 Jan 2012 18:28:26 +0000 http://andrewseybold.com/?p=2812#comment-226 [...] th&#1077 original post: LightSquared: B&#1091 Hook &#959r Crook « ANDREWSEYBOLD.com Share and [...] [...] th&#1077 original post: LightSquared: B&#1091 Hook &#959r Crook « ANDREWSEYBOLD.com Share and [...]

]]> Comment on Mission-Critical Voice Over LTE: What, When, and How? by Public Safety Communications and the U.S. Congress « ANDREWSEYBOLD.com http://andrewseybold.com/2772-mission-critical-voice-over-lte-what-when-and-how/comment-page-1#comment-224 Public Safety Communications and the U.S. Congress « ANDREWSEYBOLD.com Mon, 09 Jan 2012 20:12:31 +0000 http://andrewseybold.com/?p=2772#comment-224 [...] some point in the future, if and when mission-critical voice capabilities become available over the Public Safety broadband network, the Public Safety community will be more [...] [...] some point in the future, if and when mission-critical voice capabilities become available over the Public Safety broadband network, the Public Safety community will be more [...]

]]> Comment on 700-MHz Narrowband/Broadband Sharing–My Comments by Public Safety Communications and the U.S. Congress « ANDREWSEYBOLD.com http://andrewseybold.com/2132-700-mhz-narrowbandbroadband-sharing-my-comments/comment-page-1#comment-223 Public Safety Communications and the U.S. Congress « ANDREWSEYBOLD.com Mon, 09 Jan 2012 20:11:25 +0000 http://andrewseybold.com/?p=2132#comment-223 [...] community is strongly in favor of the terms provided in S911 with the exception of the proposed shared broadband/narrowband use of the currently allocated narrowband spectrum. It is strongly opposed to the governance, [...] [...] community is strongly in favor of the terms provided in S911 with the exception of the proposed shared broadband/narrowband use of the currently allocated narrowband spectrum. It is strongly opposed to the governance, [...]

]]> Comment on LightSquared: By Hook or Crook by wd8chl http://andrewseybold.com/2812-lightsquared-by-hook-or-crook/comment-page-1#comment-222 wd8chl Mon, 09 Jan 2012 14:48:47 +0000 http://andrewseybold.com/?p=2812#comment-222 Let's also not forget that the reason GPS receivers hear in that spectrum is that, many years ago, it was Lightsquared that told the manufacturers that they could use their satellites for higher-accuracy position reporting for certain applications. Andy might have more of the history on that, but Lightsquared CANNOT blame GPS receivers for hearing in that spectrum, when they were the ones who suggested using it in the first place. And yes, it is absolutely true that aviation and military GPS will be affected by this. Anyone who actually understands RF, propagation, and things like adjacent channel interference, intermodulation products, and why a digitally modulated signal will generate more interference than an analog one, or why a broad bandwidth signal will generate more interference than a narrow one, will look at this and say, 'duh...heelllloooo.' I do see however, that the FCC should not have allowed this waiver to begin with, just as they should not have allowed Nextel to operate the way they did either. Again, anyone who really understands RF could see the problem coming miles (or in this case years) away. Let’s also not forget that the reason GPS receivers hear in that spectrum is that, many years ago, it was Lightsquared that told the manufacturers that they could use their satellites for higher-accuracy position reporting for certain applications. Andy might have more of the history on that, but Lightsquared CANNOT blame GPS receivers for hearing in that spectrum, when they were the ones who suggested using it in the first place.
And yes, it is absolutely true that aviation and military GPS will be affected by this. Anyone who actually understands RF, propagation, and things like adjacent channel interference, intermodulation products, and why a digitally modulated signal will generate more interference than an analog one, or why a broad bandwidth signal will generate more interference than a narrow one, will look at this and say, ‘duh…heelllloooo.’
I do see however, that the FCC should not have allowed this waiver to begin with, just as they should not have allowed Nextel to operate the way they did either. Again, anyone who really understands RF could see the problem coming miles (or in this case years) away.

]]> Comment on LightSquared: By Hook or Crook by Andrew M. Seybold http://andrewseybold.com/2812-lightsquared-by-hook-or-crook/comment-page-1#comment-220 Andrew M. Seybold Mon, 09 Jan 2012 00:21:40 +0000 http://andrewseybold.com/?p=2812#comment-220 Sverbil--I could not have said it any better, Rich do you work with LightSquared? Are you affiliated with them in any way? Radio Spectrum is a finite resource and we need more for broadband services to be sure but not at the potential expense of interference to GPS receivers. In reality the process should have been to request engineering studies first, letting the FCC engineers and other make tests, and THEN apply for a waiver once it was proven (or in this case disproven) that there would be no interfernce. Someday we are going to learn that spectrum issues should not be decided by lawyers and politicians who become enamoured with a concept instead of sound engineering studies. This is actually the third case in recent memory when this happended. The first as Sverbil stated was the Nextel fisaco, which was forseen by some very good engineers whose input was ignored, the second was the FCC's desire to auction off what was known as AWS-2 spectrum as Time Division Duplex (TDD) spectrum right above the AWS-1 FCC spectrum, a lot of which was bought at auction by T-Mobile. T-Mobile to their credit pushed tests and proved that FDD and TDD systems in adjacent spectrum would cause interferenc to the FCC systems. The plan now is to auction the AWS-2 and AWS-3 spectrum as paired spectrum for FDD so it will have not impact on the systems in the AWS-1 spectrum. However, in addition to the T-Mobile testing it was just plain good fortune that the FCC held up on ths Auction because Congress was looking at all spectrum auctions otherwise who knows what would have happened. And BTW I have never said that war planes and commerical planes would fall out of the sky, I merely included a link to the FAA's and Airforce findings. When it comes to this type of thing I rely on the experts. Andy Sverbil–I could not have said it any better, Rich do you work with LightSquared? Are you affiliated with them in any way? Radio Spectrum is a finite resource and we need more for broadband services to be sure but not at the potential expense of interference to GPS receivers. In reality the process should have been to request engineering studies first, letting the FCC engineers and other make tests, and THEN apply for a waiver once it was proven (or in this case disproven) that there would be no interfernce.
Someday we are going to learn that spectrum issues should not be decided by lawyers and politicians who become enamoured with a concept instead of sound engineering studies.
This is actually the third case in recent memory when this happended. The first as Sverbil stated was the Nextel fisaco, which was forseen by some very good engineers whose input was ignored, the second was the FCC’s desire to auction off what was known as AWS-2 spectrum as Time Division Duplex (TDD) spectrum right above the AWS-1 FCC spectrum, a lot of which was bought at auction by T-Mobile. T-Mobile to their credit pushed tests and proved that FDD and TDD systems in adjacent spectrum would cause interferenc to the FCC systems. The plan now is to auction the AWS-2 and AWS-3 spectrum as paired spectrum for FDD so it will have not impact on the systems in the AWS-1 spectrum. However, in addition to the T-Mobile testing it was just plain good fortune that the FCC held up on ths Auction because Congress was looking at all spectrum auctions otherwise who knows what would have happened.
And BTW I have never said that war planes and commerical planes would fall out of the sky, I merely included a link to the FAA’s and Airforce findings. When it comes to this type of thing I rely on the experts.
Andy

]]> Comment on LightSquared: By Hook or Crook by sverbil http://andrewseybold.com/2812-lightsquared-by-hook-or-crook/comment-page-1#comment-219 sverbil Sun, 08 Jan 2012 21:46:38 +0000 http://andrewseybold.com/?p=2812#comment-219 Rich: We're all a little tired of the LighSquared fanboys asserting facts not in evidence, and simply ignoring physics as if wishing it would make it so. The evidence, after witnessed tests, is in - and it shows that the LightSquared proposed system will interfere with consumer and commercial users of GPS. The FCC is entitled to set is regulations so that weak signal applications live next to weak signal applications, and that precedent is long established - it is the reason the FCC was able to force Sprint/Nextel to pay for all of the rebanding costs caused by the near/far problem they created with the interference-limited design iDen system immediately adjacent to the noise-limited design public safety systems. The marketplace requires a level of certainty so that investments can be made - and the certainty in the GPS business is that it is a (very) weak signal environment that would stay that way. Following your argument to its logical (and ludicrous) conclusion, you would fault appliance manufacturers who deliver to the North American market for not designing *all* of their appliances to run on 230 volts as well as 115 volts simply because at some point it is possible that we might decide to change the voltage level across North America. Ya' know, (most) of that wiring has 600 volts insulation, so there shouldn't be any problems, right? Bottom line here is: follow the money. LightSquared is following the same Nextel business model that we were all burned by before... buy the frequencies cheap (because the market priced them that way precisely *due to* their limitations as space-based frequencies) and get a regulatory change approved that would (surprise!) radically raise the value of their investment. That looks like special-interest deregulation to me, and let me say "no thanks" to that, as we've seen how well that went with U.S. banking, and with Nextel. Rich:

We’re all a little tired of the LighSquared fanboys asserting facts not in evidence, and simply ignoring physics as if wishing it would make it so. The evidence, after witnessed tests, is in – and it shows that the LightSquared proposed system will interfere with consumer and commercial users of GPS. The FCC is entitled to set is regulations so that weak signal applications live next to weak signal applications, and that precedent is long established – it is the reason the FCC was able to force Sprint/Nextel to pay for all of the rebanding costs caused by the near/far problem they created with the interference-limited design iDen system immediately adjacent to the noise-limited design public safety systems.

The marketplace requires a level of certainty so that investments can be made – and the certainty in the GPS business is that it is a (very) weak signal environment that would stay that way. Following your argument to its logical (and ludicrous) conclusion, you would fault appliance manufacturers who deliver to the North American market for not designing *all* of their appliances to run on 230 volts as well as 115 volts simply because at some point it is possible that we might decide to change the voltage level across North America. Ya’ know, (most) of that wiring has 600 volts insulation, so there shouldn’t be any problems, right?

Bottom line here is: follow the money. LightSquared is following the same Nextel business model that we were all burned by before… buy the frequencies cheap (because the market priced them that way precisely *due to* their limitations as space-based frequencies) and get a regulatory change approved that would (surprise!) radically raise the value of their investment.

That looks like special-interest deregulation to me, and let me say “no thanks” to that, as we’ve seen how well that went with U.S. banking, and with Nextel.

]]> Comment on LightSquared: By Hook or Crook by Rich http://andrewseybold.com/2812-lightsquared-by-hook-or-crook/comment-page-1#comment-218 Rich Fri, 06 Jan 2012 23:43:30 +0000 http://andrewseybold.com/?p=2812#comment-218 I am glad to see that the FCC is finally recogising that the recievers should also be looked at. All this stuff about GPS going off the air is way overblown to the magnitude that it has been. Any aircraft or military device HAS to be tolerant of jammers. No amount of stuff by lightsquared woudl affect these. So what are we talking about now? Garmin and Tom Tom? Cheap chips which put no front end filter on them and have out of band jammers making their noise floor raise? Ok, so why did hte FCC not limit the box being made with a band limiter? I would say that the companies took the risk of making a cheap product over making it robust to jammers and assuming that NOBODY would put anything next to GPS. Same problem came up with Sirius and XM. cheap roll off filter on the front end, but when Nextwave bought teh sepctrum next to it, Nextwave COULD have taken XM andSirius out of business by legally radiating in their own band. but due to grandfathering and poor reciver specs, everyone had to jump thru hoops to use spectrum that the FCC sold full well knowing that it would mess up. It is high time we had front end filter reciever specs as part of the FCC part 15 qualifications. Make sure you only work in your own band and set a filter mask for out of band like 43 10log(p) like the transmitters have to do. With this, we end having these debates for years over who is more important, what is noise, etc. But PLEASE, do not post any more about the Military and Jet liners being taken out by this. That is just plain not true. I am glad to see that the FCC is finally recogising that the recievers should also be looked at. All this stuff about GPS going off the air is way overblown to the magnitude that it has been. Any aircraft or military device HAS to be tolerant of jammers. No amount of stuff by lightsquared woudl affect these.

So what are we talking about now? Garmin and Tom Tom? Cheap chips which put no front end filter on them and have out of band jammers making their noise floor raise? Ok, so why did hte FCC not limit the box being made with a band limiter? I would say that the companies took the risk of making a cheap product over making it robust to jammers and assuming that NOBODY would put anything next to GPS.

Same problem came up with Sirius and XM. cheap roll off filter on the front end, but when Nextwave bought teh sepctrum next to it, Nextwave COULD have taken XM andSirius out of business by legally radiating in their own band. but due to grandfathering and poor reciver specs, everyone had to jump thru hoops to use spectrum that the FCC sold full well knowing that it would mess up.

It is high time we had front end filter reciever specs as part of the FCC part 15 qualifications. Make sure you only work in your own band and set a filter mask for out of band like 43 10log(p) like the transmitters have to do.

With this, we end having these debates for years over who is more important, what is noise, etc.

But PLEASE, do not post any more about the Military and Jet liners being taken out by this. That is just plain not true.

]]> Comment on What’s Ahead for Network Operators? by Martyn Roetter http://andrewseybold.com/2797-whats-ahead-for-network-operators/comment-page-1#comment-217 Martyn Roetter Sun, 25 Dec 2011 17:29:41 +0000 http://andrewseybold.com/?p=2797#comment-217 Andy,I absolutely agree that differences of opinion are healthy to express and can foster a mutually productive dialog. I greatly appreciate your open mindedness in that regard. With respect to AT&T's statements about rural coverage: 1.AT&T stated it was not economic to expand its LTE coverage into rural areas to reach 97% coverage of U.S. POPs. 2.Yet it is AT&T which holds both 850 and 700 MHz frequencies that are the most economical bands in which to do this, not AWS-1 or 1900 MHz. 3. AT&T could also have partnered with rural carriers (but has refused to do so)in the same way that Verizon is doing to share the costs and deliver mobile broadband more economically than on a stand-alone basis. 4. I therefore concluded -which of course you may disagree with - that AT&T was being disingenuous when it claimed that ONLY by gaining access to T-Mobile's frequencies (which by the way did not increase in any significant way the geographic coverage of its portfolio of frequencies)would it be able to afford to expand its LTE coverage to 97% of the U.S. population, up from 80%. I chose this example as but one of the many assertions made by AT&T that upon analysis proved to be completely unjustified and misleading (another one being its claims of creating many thousands of jobs). all the best for 2012 - I wait to see what AT&T will do now and can think of several alternatives, as well as better options for T-Mobile. Martyn Andy,I absolutely agree that differences of opinion are healthy to express and can foster a mutually productive dialog. I greatly appreciate your open mindedness in that regard. With respect to AT&T’s statements about rural coverage: 1.AT&T stated it was not economic to expand its LTE coverage into rural areas to reach 97% coverage of U.S. POPs. 2.Yet it is AT&T which holds both 850 and 700 MHz frequencies that are the most economical bands in which to do this, not AWS-1 or 1900 MHz. 3. AT&T could also have partnered with rural carriers (but has refused to do so)in the same way that Verizon is doing to share the costs and deliver mobile broadband more economically than on a stand-alone basis. 4. I therefore concluded -which of course you may disagree with – that AT&T was being disingenuous when it claimed that ONLY by gaining access to T-Mobile’s frequencies (which by the way did not increase in any significant way the geographic coverage of its portfolio of frequencies)would it be able to afford to expand its LTE coverage to 97% of the U.S. population, up from 80%. I chose this example as but one of the many assertions made by AT&T that upon analysis proved to be completely unjustified and misleading (another one being its claims of creating many thousands of jobs).

all the best for 2012 – I wait to see what AT&T will do now and can think of several alternatives, as well as better options for T-Mobile.

Martyn

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