[opendtv] Re: IEEE Ericsson article on use of LTE for TV

  • From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2012 14:22:50 -0400

At 7:05 PM -0400 6/16/12, Albert Manfredi wrote:
Apps are programs. And yes, perhaps that's a start at telcos "losing control," but I have yet to see an "app" that will allow an iPhone or any other phones to run on a competitor's cell network. Or that will permit reception of TV broadcasts OTA, for that matter. 


http://www.telly-app.com/
(But the really funny part about this is, you seemed opposed to people unshackling iPads from the restrictions imposed by Apple, e.g. the Flash player nonsense, and yet when telcos use these tactics, suddenly they're the bad guys. Interesting ...)
Apple provided more than adequate reasoning for not supporting Flash in iOS. They ALSO provided a superior standards based solution that is widely supported across the Internet; the same solution that Adobe is now embracing as they extend their tool sets to support HTML-5 and h.264. 




Thus an LTE enabled iPAd sold in the U.S. works with Verizon and
AT&T, but does not support the frequencies being used for LTE in
Europe and Australia.
That's an example of how something as simple as the frequency band can be used to deny a certain type of service, if the cellcos find it to their advantage. The OPPOSITE is also true. There is no similarity between, say, the old analog AMPS and 2G, and yet most 2G cell phones (if not all) supported both standards. There's no similarity between the GSM 2G and the GSM 3G modulation, and yet I think all GSM 3G also support 2G. Same goes with GPS. Some cell phones incorporate GPS receivers.
We are in the very early days of chip support for LTE. The first generation chips were both large and power hogs. The second gen chip that Apple uses in the new iPAD has better power characteristics, but is limited in frequency agility. We will see what Apple and Qualcomm come up with for the next iPhone.
So *if* the cellcos saw any reason to do so, they could certainly "allow" the Samsungs and the LGs of the world to build in ATSC M/H.
Nothing stopping them. Since Samsung has both IP in the standard and builds chips and ATSC MH products, you might ask why they are NOT adding MH support in their smartphones.
The likely answer is that adding the chip would require a larger phone package, and that battery life would be severely impacted. 

Take a look at this E-bay page

http://www.ebay.com/sch/sis.html?_nkw=Samsung+SIR+T351+ATSC+HD+TV+Tuner+Receiver+set+top+box

This may help you understand the issues.




To support ATSC MH, a phone would require a very complex chip in
addition to the RF chip used to support multiple generations of Telco
networks.
Forgive me if I don't take your word for this. GPS receiver and WCDMA chips are at the very least as complex as ATSC M/H, and yet cell phones manage to pack these in and more. And room left over from having gotten rid of AMPS. 


The GPS chip in the iPhone is <35mm square and uses 13 mW of power.

http://www.broadcom.com/products/GPS/GPS-Silicon-Solutions/BCM4750

Not much detail here:

http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/.../S3C4F61-0.pdf

The GPS chips is used extensively by apps for location based services.


And the ATSC MH chip would be a major power hog
Nope. You continue to forget how it works, and also, when not in use, it would go into sleep mode. How does DVB-H avoid being a power hog, Craig? Think along those lines, please. This is the tired old saw that ATSC opponents have been drumming up since the 1st gen. As always, stuck back in 1999.
Quoted run times for ATSC MH hand held devices have been abysmal - this might be part of the reason they are so hard to find. Lot's of notebook dongles and modules for automobile TV integration (with Car Theater systems), but hardly any handhelds. The limited availability of MH broadcast could be a factor. 




The government is not likely to allow one broadcaster to buy
up all of the spectrum in a market.
They won't have a choice, if TV really goes to LTE. Even large markets like this one (DC) get less than 80 MHz of TV spectrum, and the 4G LTE channel widths are going to be that wide or wider. So the government will have to think of local OTA TV as it thinks of any other single cell service provider.
Sorry, but this is not the case. The required channel bandwidths will be possible with spectrum pooling. But the FCC HAS NOT published, or even mentioned, any rules to change the ownership limits. It is the broadcasters (and ATSC) who are talking about pooling their spectrum for Broadcast LTE.
Except that now, you don't have the multiple competing multiplexes. I know you think these multiplexes "didn't really compete," but then, if this is true, you should not have objected to any notion of removing the FCC local ownership caps?
Broadcasters are living off of ad revenues for their primary, and in some cases secondary channels (like CW and MY Network TV), and retransmission consent dollars. MH is not an economically viable service, at least not yet. As I have said before, broadcasters don't really compete with each other as much as they compete with the MVPDs, packaged media and now, Internet streaming.
As for future ownership caps, who knows. I guess it depends on whether broadcasters are willing to step up to the plate and create a viable OTA service, or if competitors make a better case with the politicians. 


What is more relevant, is that in the areas  outside of major markets, the
Broadcast LTE network can use higher power levels and taller towers to reduce
the density of the mesh.
Words words words. Vague words. Larger markets provide "local broadcaster" coverage that may have a radius of up to 60 miles and sometimes more. If you are saying that in the city and the close-in suburbs you can use one arrangement, and then in the exurbs you can use a different arrangement, I might even agree. *BUT*, confound it, that's what makes arguing with vague generalities so frustrating. To do this, you will need more frequencies.
This is not vague generalities. It is sim,ply logical network design, based on population density and economic realities, In dense urband areas you have the economics to support a denser mesh.
We have ALREADY agreed that this TV-related LTE network sill be 2-way, yes? So we have ALREADY agreed that the 84 MHz requirement of the IEEE article was bogus (it would be that for just one cell). Now you have added a high powered exurbs network that cannot be allowed to interfere with the dense closer in network.
I have not agreed that broadcasters will use any of their spectrum for a return path. This already exists via the Telco 2-way data infrastructure - there is little need to duplicate this as the return path signalling will be minimal. 

Regards
Craig


----------------------------------------------------------------------
You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways:
- Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at FreeLists.org 
- By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word 
unsubscribe in the subject line.

Other related posts:

  1. Home
  2. opendtv
  3. Archive
  4. 06-2012