Getting Competitive Internet Service
Posted on February 24, 2011
The future arrives next year…in South Korea.
By the end of 2012 South Korea intends to connect every home in the country to the Internet at one gigabit per second. That’s seventy times faster than my average 14 mb/s download speed and three hundred times quicker than my average upload speed. You can check your own speeds here by testing connections to a variety of cities. (I took an average of four.)
Download audio narration to iPhone, iPod, and iPad here (six minutes).
While pricing has yet to be determined, the project manager told The New York Times that rates of $70 monthly – which are charged in Japan for such speeds – are unthinkably high in South Korea. By comparison, the first U.S. city offering the public one gigabit speeds is Chattanooga, Tennessee. The publicly owned electric utility was given a $100 million Federal grant to lay fiber-to-the-home in order to enable a smart grid. Read more…
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Understanding Wireless Frequencies
Posted on February 22, 2011
When turning into a teenager, I’d go to bed listening to songs on my favorite rock station. If there was a thunderstorm I couldn’t fail to notice that lightning was synchronized with static in reception. I didn’t know why, or really care very much because it was only momentary.
But I was curious…
To download audio narration to iPod, iPhone, or iPad click here (five minutes)
Eventually I learned that lightning is a blast of electromagnetic radiation spamming nearly all frequencies. That explained why I would hear the static no matter what station I was listening to. It also provided a link back to the earliest days of radio, when it was known as wireless telegraphy. In point of fact, the first devices used to produce electromagnetic signals were termed spark-gap generators. The signaling waves were created by actual sparks. As this YouTube video demonstrates, the sparks were essentially little lightning bolts.
Radio engineers quickly realized that unless sparks could somehow be “tuned” to individual channels, each additional transmitter would add noise to an increasingly unintelligible background cacophony. The result would be the radio equivalent of voices in a steadily more crowded bar room with the result that only nearby people can understand one another. Read more…
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Understanding Wireless Bandwidth
Posted on February 15, 2011
As iPhone users increasingly complain of dropped calls and slow web-surfing, the once esoteric term “bandwidth” is repeatedly showing up in public conversation. While nearly everyone complains there’s a scarcity of it not enough of us understand why. To begin with first principles, there’s always been a bandwidth shortage.
To download audio narration to iPhone, iPad, or iPod click here (six minutes).
Originally…
Nearly a hundred years ago wireless communication was a novelty that many well-heeled passengers on the westbound Titanic couldn’t resist. They flooded the Marconi room with private messages to family and friends in America. Titanic’s operator first needed a clear link to Cape Race, Newfoundland from whence messages were relayed to the States. The connection was easier to establish and maintain after dark owing to the absence of the Sun’s competing radiation.
Thus, on the night of April 14, 1912 Jack Phillips was working the distant but barely audible Cape Race link when a nearby freighter messaged it had stopped for the night because of a massive ice-field immediately West. The operator’s signal spammed the entire known spectrum. Since his transmitter was relatively close to Titanic it overwhelmed the Cape Race signals. Phillip’s responded, “Shut up! I am busy. I am working Cape Race.” Read more…
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Understanding TV Band White Spaces
Posted on February 14, 2011
Response to our last post on TV Band White spaces revealed that many people do not understand precisely what “white spaces” really are. Some think they are the vertical blanking intervals that show-up when the TV pictures roll. Others assume they are the guard bands separating one channel from another. Finally, some think that white space is the additional capacity enabled by the switch from analog-to-digital TV broadcasting.
The correct answer is none of the above.
Download audio narration to iPhone, iPod, and iPad here (four minutes)
TV Band White Spaces are the unused TV channels in each geographic area. The FCC set-aside almost fifty TV channels, but not a single city comes even close to using them all. That means there is unused TV spectrum in each locality that could be used for other purposes including (1) wireless Internet service, (2) wireless local area networks, and (3) hot spots for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers. The spectrum could be used without taking anything away from TV stations. Read more…
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Why TV Band White Spaces are Important
Posted on February 11, 2011
Two weeks ago the FCC took the final administrative step enabling TV Band White Spaces to become a reality when they selected database administrators. Online databases will be automatically queried by White Spaces devices to find vacant TV channels that can be used for mobile and other wireless communications. TV Band White Space technology means future smartphones – and other wireless devices — will be able to use TV frequencies as routinely as they do WiFi.
The FCC authorization is important for four reasons.
Download audio narration to iPhone, iPod, and iPad here (four minutes)
First, it provides additional spectrum to alleviate increasing cellular congestion that’s been inhibiting the wireless Internet. Both AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless are discouraging unlimited Internet use. Consequently, subscribers seeking to bypass cellular service with Wi-Fi hot-spots will henceforth also have TV bands as a future option. Read more…
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What Television is Really Becoming
Posted on February 8, 2011
Nicholas Negroponte who founded MIT’s Media Lab correctly put it sixteen years ago when he wrote in Being Digital “…the future open-architecture television is the personal computer, period.”
Ultimately the confusing assortment of products and services capturing headlines today are merely Fool’s Errands involving futile attempts to placate established media leaders. Examples include GoogleTV, Sony “Connected TVs”, AppleTV, Roku, Vudu, Pop Box, PS3, Xbox, Joost, WebTV, Xfinity, TV Everywhere, various lobotomized TV set-top boxes, and their siblings. Essentially they’re attempts to artificially impose inflated content-bundled pricing, much like record labels historically required consumers to purchase entire pre-recorded CDs merely to get two or three desired tracks. Once bundling is shattered, content providers are forced to genuinely innovate. The ultimate consequence of limited access is the stimulation of demand for unrestricted access.
Download audio narrative to iPhone, iPod, and iPad here ( three minutes).
Televisions will become giant windows into the Internet Cloud. They’ll transform into electronic hearths through which family members gather to remotely share communications and social experiences as much as to watch videos. In addition to watching “TV” shows and movies, they’ll use future televisions for video phone calls, FaceBook updates, news feeds, interactive gaming, and knowledge quests within the nearly infinite mind of the Internet. Moreover, such features will augment one another. For example, FaceBook socializing will alert us to new videos our friends are watching. Read more…
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Jeff Bewkes and the Sesquicentennial
Posted on February 3, 2011
There may appear to be no connection between Time-Warner boss Jeff Bewkes and the Sesquicentennial of the American Civil War, but they’re linked by false confidence in the status quo. Every time the press quotes Time-Warner’s “Content is King” mantra I am reminded of the failed Confederacy’s “King Cotton” diplomacy.
After 150 years we laugh at “King Cotton”, but the argument seemed plausible at the time. When the war began cotton accounted for 60% of United States exports. The American South represented 70% of the World’s production. Furthermore, shipments were almost certain to increase for years because cotton was rapidly becoming the essential fabric for garments in the civilized world.
Download audio narration to iPad, iPhone, and iPod (six minutes).
Initially the Confederate government attempted to induce European recognition with a voluntary cotton embargo. Later the Union blockade cut exports even more sharply. Consequently cotton production increased in India, Egypt, and Argentina. As the South’s best customers turned to other suppliers, it was forced to trade with the enemy. New England textile mills sent agents south into Federal-controlled war zones to acquire – by whatever means – all the cotton they could get. Read more…
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How To Cut Cable TV Cord
Posted on February 1, 2011
If you would like to learn how to discontinue Cable or Satellite TV service and still get most of the TV shows and movies you like, our new e-Book How to Cut the Pay TV Cord is for you.
First, we’ll show you how to legally get plenty of Internet video displayed on your TV screen. Furthermore, we not only tell you with text and pictures, we also show you with embedded instructional videos that have been viewed hundreds-of-thousands-of-times.
To listen to audio narration now click here (three minutes).
Second, the e-book tells you how to find Internet videos applicable to your personal interests. Read more…
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