On 9/21/06, Manfredi, Albert E <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Kon Wilms wrote:
> The modulation choice for this 'system' is a joke - cellular > with multicast or other data-network overlay is the natural > choice here people.
I think the natural choice for info-to-population (i.e not two-way) in crisis situations is a system where a small number of towers can redundantly cover the market area. This describes a number of big sticks, such as used by radio and TV broadcasters, more than a cellular network. Knock out one, two, three, four, ... , and you can still cover the entire area.
Multicast overlay is great to avoid saturation of the cell net, but the cell net still requires a lot more infrastructure to cover a large area than a small number of redundant big sticks.
We have no decent cell coverage where we live, for example. Only works if you stand up next to certain windows. Knock out one of those small sticks, or part of the net that feeds them, and we'd be out of luck completely.
Bert
Multicast overlay, sounds great, now if we only had a decent, just a run of the mill, modulation that actually worked. How about that VSB one that China chose but will reject in the market place? May not be good enough for China but it should be good enough for the US.
Now how do you suggest that an advanced VSB system is not as good as the one we have Bert? Not worth switching to even for Homeland Security?
If not then for how many years? We could not switch in 2000 because there were too many receivers in the field that would be made obsolete. We cannot switch now for the same reason times ten. What about in 20 years when there will be untold millions of......wait a minute.....your right.....in 20 years no one will be using 8-VSB, no one will have bought an 8-VSB receiver in 15 years or so and all those receivers out their today will be obsolete by then by default so it will be easy to change to an advanced modulation then. Good thinking.
And we can depend, sort of, as you say on the cellular network. Hey Cingular just put antennas on the roof of my Co-op to the tune of $47,000 a year. Maybe my maintanance will go down,,,NOT.
And BTW how do you square whatever savings to the public there is for not obsoleting their current receivers for a better modulation now against the cost of (1) not receiving DTV for a % of the population that could recieve it with a better modulation, (2) the waste of using MPEG2 instead of MPEG4 for X years?
Just forget about the cost of not being able to "Multicast overlay" that curcial end of the world message to demographically challenged OTA reliers on who made the fatal mistake of living in or near a big city in an apartment no less.
Bob Miller
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