[opendtv] Re: DEA-what? was: Re: Re: News: DIRECTV Sued Over HDTV Picture Quality
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2006 09:21:38 -0400
At 2:32 PM -0400 9/21/06, Manfredi, Albert E wrote:
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.
You are on the right track here Bert, but you are missing the forest
for the trees.
You nailed it with: "in crisis situations is a system where a small
number of towers can
redundantly cover the market area."
But the current radio and TV broadcast infrastructure is only
redundant IF the user tunes to another station when the one they were
depending upon goes out. And as was pointed out recently, it is
growing more common to co-locate ATSC stations on the same towers or
in the same antenna farm. A jet fighter with a few missiles could
wipe out TV in the Los Angeles market.
The way to provide proper redundancy is to have a network with a
small number of towers in each market that provide real redundancy.
IF New York City were covered by 4-5 transmission sites, each of
which carried all of the frequencies used in that market, it would
not be possible to knock out the digital network by taking down a
single building. Equally important, these sites WOULD NOT need to use
big sticks or high power levels, which makes siting far easier.
If an emergency occurs you would just shift the modulation
constellations to modes that provide highly reliable service at a
reduced bit rate. AND, such a service would enable cheap, low
complexity receivers that could replace today's AM/FM radio services.
This is so obvious, that it continues to amaze me, and many others on
this list, when you defend the current high powered big stick
approach to DTV.
the TWO-WAY cellular network will certainly play a role in
emergencies, however, it is not the most desirable solution. At least
Bert is right about the need for a reliable, redundant, one-way
broadcast service for bits. Unfortunatley we do not have such a
service.
Regards
Craig
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