Re: An Earthly Idea for Doubling the Airwaves

From: Stephen D. Williams (sdw@lig.net)
Date: Mon Apr 09 2001 - 05:54:37 PDT


"If Mr. Tawil's reasoning proves correct, small transmitters on towers
could offer a
competing and far cheaper service by beaming signals on the same
frequencies from
the north of their intended subscribers. Signals travel in a straight
line, so those from
towers have a limited range on the curved surface of the Earth. But that
smaller range
would make it easier to offer the local programming that has eluded
satellite services,
which by their nature broadcast to huge areas. And because such a system
would not
require launching satellites or laying cable, it could be offered at a
fraction of what is
being charged by direct broadcast satellite and cable television
services, in rural as
well as urban areas."

Oh come on... While a reasonable comparison to cable, the single
expensive satellite transmitters are going to still be cheaper than any
comparibly broad tower/transmitter deployment. There are a LOT of
30-mile-radius areas that will each need their own system. Not to
mention the existing capitalization of competing systems like Cable.
Growth by attrition would be tough unless you are providing broadband
Internet access at the same time.

Doesn't this sound similar in principle, if not in spectrum, to the
'Cellular Cable TV' investments I was badgered with a few years ago?
Whatever happened to that?

Additionally, my impression was that there was no shortage of spectrum
for geosync satellite reception due to the exceptionally narrow focus
needed to get even a reasonable signal. I've setup small Ku band
dishes, larger than what are used now, and if you are more than a couple
degrees off center or 90 deg. out of rotational phase, you get nothing.
That should allow the use of about 30-50 satellites at each freq. range.

> Dhiren Patel wrote:
>
>
>
> http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nyt/20010408/tc/an_earthly_idea_for_doubling_the_airwaves_1.html
>
> Name: An Earthly Idea for
> Doubling the Airwaves.url
> An Earthly Idea for Doubling the Airwaves.url Type: unspecified type
> (application/octet-stream)
> Encoding: quoted-printable

sdw

-- 
sdw@lig.net  http://sdw.st
Stephen D. Williams
43392 Wayside Cir,Ashburn,VA 20147-4622 703-724-0118W 703-995-0407Fax 
Dec2000



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