Subject: [NEXTEL-1] The Masked Engineer- The 'F' in FCC Stands for Fun!

From: NEXTEL-1
Date: Wed, 23 Jun 2004 09:00:13 -0400

The Masked Engineer: Mario Orazio
The 'F' in FCC Stands for Fun!

You might not have noticed that your laptop doesn't have an 802.11a
connection. Let me put that another way: you might not have noticed that
Our Beloved Commish, aka the FCC, has a great sense of humor.

You think I jest? Ha! They jest! For instance, look at the V-chip. I
ain't going to get into a back-and-forth here about censorship versus
protecting children. Humor me (chuckle), and assume Congress did the
right thing in Sec. 551 of the Telecom Act of '96, the "Parental Choice
in Television Pro-gramming" section. It orders Our Beloved Commish to
require viewing controls (V-chips) in TVs 13-inch and over, on account
of that's the size of home TVs.

So far, so good. But Congress probably couldn't get a VCR to stop
blinking 12:00 if all 535 of them took a whack at it, so they didn't
notice that around 90 percent of American homes have VCRs, and VCRs are
connected between antennas or cable-TV spigots and TVs, and VCRs have
tuners. So any kid wanting to watch restricted programming would just
have to turn on the VCR.

Our Beloved Commish, I like to think, ought to have at least one person
on staff who does know how to program a VCR, so you'd think they would
have mentioned to Congress that the V-chip is pretty useless unless VCR
tuners are included, too, but no. Best I can figure is that they left
VCRs out so they could chortle at Congress anytime someone mentions the
V-chip. Bwahahahahaha!

THE LAUGHTER CONTINUES

Or how about that hysterically funny broadcast-flag order? The V-chip is
supposed to give parents control over programming, but it doesn't on
account of VCRs. The broadcast-flag order, which CBS considered so
important that they said they'd stop all HDTV if it wasn't implemented
(until they changed their minds), is supposed to give broadcasters
control over Internet-retransmission of DTV.

Our Beloved Commish did a heck of a job on this one. They weren't just
trying to restrict little tykes this time. Oh, no! The order says
manufacturers need to make their devices tinker-proof against consumers
wielding soldering irons, clip leads, de-buggers, and EEPROM burners. I
am not making this up.

And, this time, VCRs ain't an out. Every digital output is covered in
one way or another. There's just one itsy-bitsy, teenie-weenie loophole,
a loophole so small that the pilot of a giant A380 wouldn't want to
sleep too long while flying through it. Analog outputs - even HDTV
analog outputs - are totally unprotected.

Now, then, maybe you could believe that the executives at CBS had never
heard of analog-to-digital converters, but I'd surely hope that someone
at Our Beloved Commish had. So why send manufacturers jumping through
hoops to stop piracy on digital outputs (and even internal digital
signals), when the analog outputs are an open invitation? That's
entertainment! Ho ho ho!
"But, Mario, aren't HDTV-rate analog-to-digital converters prohibitively
expensive?"

Well, now, I ain't sure what kids' allowances are like these days, but
I'll grant you that, if this was the V-chip we were talking about, sure.
But it ain't. It's protection against someone with an EEPROM burner, a
debugger, and tools. Maybe that person also bought a consumer HDV
camcorder (it currently sells for less than the cost of many TVs, and
the price keeps dropping).
Most people buy a camcorder for the camera part and the recorder part.
But John Q. Pirate can also buy one for what's in between the imager and
the tape, an HDTV-rate analog-to-digital converter followed by a
convenient bit-rate-reduction system convenient for shrinking the size
of the files posted to the Internet (and putting them in an
easy-to-decode MPEG-2 format).  Tee-hee-hee-hee-hee!

ANTENNA ANTICS

I've been mentioning those folks at Our Beloved Commish who might have
an inkling (which, methinks, is a wee drop of ink) about such things as
VCR programming and analog-to-digital converters. If anyone ought to
have those ink stains, it would be those in the Office of Engineering
and Technology. But they're some of the best jokers in the bunch!

Back in 2001, in those dark days before DTV reception got so simple that
even a child wielding a spectrum analyzer and an antenna rotator could
achieve it (in most outdoor-antenna locations most of the time), the
Office issued a report on how great DTV reception already was. Another
TV fish-wrap's writer read the report and published a statement about
how it said even indoor reception already worked 85 percent of the time.

And why not? That's pretty much what the Office's report said about
indoor antennas. It took a bunch more reading to discover that those
indoor antennas happened to have been tested outdoors. Har-de-har-har!

And, if you read really deep in the report (Appendix B), you'd see that,
if reception didn't work at a selected site due to a null, it was okay
to move the whole rig until it did. Maybe there's a good reason critics
think the TV show called "The Office" is so funny.

Good gosh! Our Beloved Commish cranks out joke after joke. "Biennial"
reviews take place every three years. "Voluntary" plans are voluntary
only if everyone abides by them; if anyone balks, they're mandatory
(thus the "tuner" mandate, another prank itself). The DTV "core,"
instead of occupying just one octave in UHF, is straddling more than
three, from low-VHF on up.

CROWDING SPECTRUM

And now there's the "unused TV spectrum" gag. Our Beloved Commish says
unlicensed transmissions - specifically Wi-Fi stuff - are to be allowed
in empty TV channels. For some reason, this was considered by many to be
news.
Ahem. Have you used a wireless mic recently? If I was a bettor, I'd
bet-dollars-to-donuts (and you know how cheap carbohydrates are these
days) that it worked on an unused TV channel. Hello?  Anyone heard about
the Part 15 rules?
"But, Mario, isn't Part 15 low power?"

It surely is. And just what do you think Wi-Fi is?

"But, Mario, couldn't the Wi-Fi transmitters be souped-up to higher
power?"

Now, then, there's an interesting thought. Allow me to conduct a thought
experiment. Suppose Our Beloved Commish allowed a Wi-Fi transmitter to
operate at five megawatts on a 2,000-foot tower.  My, my. that's mighty
powerful Wi-Fi.
Then add to your supposing that you'd like to interact with that big
stick. Does your notebook computer pump out an equivalent five
megawatts? Does a big spring shoot it up to 2,000 feet every time it
wants to transmit?
No? Well, then, how the heck does the big, powerful stick help in
two-way Wi-Fi? Answer: It doesn't.

So all Our Beloved Commish is proposing is more low-power stuff to share
TV spectrum. It ain't a terrible idea. There's even a
post-Communications-Act-of-1934 aspect of new technology to it called
smart radios. They sniff the spectrum and transmit only on unused
channels. Heck, that'd probably do more damage to wireless mic users
than to broadcasters (except that many wireless mic users are
broadcasters).

Anyhow, you might have noticed a wee mite of a hedge in my last
sentence. I wrote "probably."
If Our Beloved Commish proposed this back in 1996, before the DTV
transition, or in 20xx (yes, I'm being optimistic), after the DTV
transition, I wouldn't have hedged. Low-power data transmissions sharing
TV spectrum? Hey, welcome to our club! We're nice. Look at the deal we
just worked out with Nextel.

But those ever-loving pranksters at Our Beloved Commish proposed it now,
in the very heart of the transition, during which everyone and her
sister (plus MSTV) is trying to figure out how to squeeze 3,400
full-power TV stations, 5,000 (or should that be 10,000?) translators,
and 2,700 (5,400?) low-power stations into an ever-shrinking chunk of
spectrum. Even without any new service, the spectrum packing ain't easy.
So, even if the new service ain't going to interfere with squat, you've
got to expect broadcasters to be touchy about it. And we are!

So now let me cut to the other side. Are we Wi-Fi interests clamoring
for the use of TV spectrum?
Hang on a sec. Let me turn up my hearing aid. Let me turn it up some
more. Maybe a little more.
Methinks I hear something, but it sounds more like thermal noise than
clamor.

Remember way, way, way back at the beginning of this lunar cycle's rant,
when I asked about 802.11a? You do? Wow!
Where was I? Oh, yeah. 802.11a.

Chances are pretty good that you've got some 802.11b or 802.11g
equipment. If you've got a Centrino processor in your computer, it's
built in. Air Port? You've got it.

As a matter of fact, you might easily have both 802.11b and 802.11g.
That's because they use the same frequency ranges. 802.11a doesn't.
That's why it's so rare.

So, millions and millions and millions of computers and accessories are
being made with 2-GHz-range transceivers, and Our Beloved Commish is
proposing that Wi-Fi drop to TV frequencies, where it might even get
wiped out by a new transmitter or even a wireless mic. I, for one, am
very grateful that some branch of our government is trying to bring us
laughter in these trying times.

Mario Orazio is the pseudonym of a well-known television engineer who
wishes to remain anonymous.

http://www.tvtechnology.com/features/Masked-Engineer/f_the_masked_engineer-06.23.04.shtml

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