White Spaces Test "Rigged," Says Google Co-Founder Page 323
Davide Marney writes "As reported by the Washington Post, Google co-founder Larry Page claims that an FCC field test of white space wireless devices was 'rigged' to make the test device fail to detect wireless microphone broadcasts. A Google spokesman explained later that testers had hidden the wireless microphones within the same frequency as local television stations, preventing the test device from detecting them."
fantastic (Score:5, Insightful)
It's great to hear debate on this issue... but this is a scientific issue, and we should test it with science. Google is a big company. They should conduct their own experiment and publish the results if they want to refute the FCC test.
Can someone explain this article a bit better... (Score:3, Insightful)
... because for someone who hasn't been following this in detail, TFA doesn't even make clear what exactly Page is claiming happened.
Re:You go, Larry! (Score:5, Insightful)
You know.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd also say that the same applies to any other discipline. If you see a flaw in someone's argument, call them on it. People are human and do make mistakes. And amateurs have access to information that many professionals would have killed for even a few years ago.
Now, this doesn't mean that a doctor or other expert has to listen to every crackpot, and that every amateur ought to be given the same weight as a noted expert. Sometimes, the proper answer to a question is indeed "Stop wasting my time." The trick is to know what time is when.
I'd call it rigged too. (Score:3, Insightful)
What we're hearing about now is outrage over test results which have not yet been published. When they are, they will "show" that wireless Internet devices that Google is trying to get accepted by the FCC were unable to detect a wireless microphone. We've supposed to then believe that the wireless Internet device, having failed to detect the microphone when it checked that chunk of the spectrum, would then begin transmitting on that piece of spectrum, thereby disrupting the microphone. The sound bite is "device which fails to avoid interfering with wireless mic is bad and will not be allowed."
It takes only a moment to see that it was a rigged test because the wireless Internet device did NOT interfere with the microphone, because it did successfully detect the local television station that was broadcasting on that frequency and therefore did not try to use it. Analog TV stations are some seriously high power broad spectrum noise. Any frequency-hopping wireless Internet device would be useless attempting to use the same frequency and would obviously move on to another part of the spectrum, thereby avoiding interfering with the TV station and any other device being masked by it. That part will be conveniently left out of the headlines. The fact that the wireless microphone itself may have been useless while attempting to use that frequency, due to interference from the television station, will also be left out.
So basically the rigged test will be used to deny Google's hopes of fielding devices to use unused spectrum, thereby maintaining the television broadcast industry's lock on chunks of spectrum that they're not even using. It's an inefficient waste of spectrum that dates back 50 years to the days of radios that had just enough vacuum tubes to put a signal into the air, and had none left over for complicated automatic frequency usage detection algorithms. Nor had the Ethernet exponential back-off anti-interference algorithm been connected to the problem. The regulatory regime is antiquated, but the entrenched corporations that have a vested interest in spectrum are defending what they see as "their" airwaves merely on principle.
It wouldn't take a working group all that long to come up with new technical requirements that could be used as FCC regulations that would make use of ALL allocated but unused licensed spectrum, without ever interfering with older dumb devices. Software radios that receive before broadcasting, analyze the results, move on to another frequency if usage is detected, exponentially back off that frequency if it's still in use the next time around, transmit only during some defined time slice, and never broadcast more than 1 watt of power could use that spectrum without legacy device interference and without mutual device interference. Google knows it. The TV industry knows it. The TV industry feels besieged after having parts of spectrum that has been their exclusive stomping grounds for decades sold off to the highest bidder while they get squeezed into digital broadcasts. Google claims they're pulling dirty tricks to defend the spectrum they have left. Just sitting here looking in from outside, I have to agree.
Re:fantastic (Score:3, Insightful)
It's hard to test these things without the FCC's help... you need to set up a scale model of TV station signals, and that requires an FCC license to do.
Only within the Continental U.S., Hawaii and some U.S. territories. Let Google go offshore somewhere and set up a test facility. I doubt Mexico would care very much (probably just grease a few palms.) Or just run their tests inside a giant shielded area ... maybe an aircraft hangar.
Re:You know.... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd like to give you my vote on your post and add a comment:
Get a second opinion. You will be shocked at how often two doctors disagree on what might seem to be simple diagnoses, meaning that at least one of them is just quite simply WRONG.
Doctors get it wrong a little more than three quarters of the time in my experience.
Here's my thought... (Score:1, Insightful)
Fuck the wireless mics. Get rid of them and put them in their own set of frequencies. This is much more important.
Re:I'd call it rigged too. (I wouldn't) (Score:5, Insightful)
Then, given that all you'll have to work with is an impenetrable square wave, and given that the FCC knows this, what is the purpose of demonstrating that you can play funky tricks by squeezing a microphone into space that will no longer exist? How can it be anything other than rigged? You said yourself this trick will not even be possible in just a few short months. How is a test that tests an environment that will no longer exist anything but a con job? My definition of "rigging" a test is creating a test that is not a faithful representation of the actual operating environment to the detriment of the applicant.
I know, I know, never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity. So some idiot designed the test, thinking he was being clever, when it had nothing to do with the environment that will pertain by the time any action could be taken to approve whitespace devices.
I still say that the Google devices checked for signals right where the 6 Mhz of spectrum was supposed to be in use, and immediately moved on, chalking off the whole block as occupied. Why check further when the licensed user is very much clear and present? It doesn't even require naivete to make that decision. It only takes a conservative engineer. Just because people like you are willing to squeeze your signal into that occupied frequency doesn't mean they were. (I don't mean that pejoratively. I'm referring to you as representative of your industry, representing long-established practice.)
And you and I both know that the theoretically lovely 6 MHz NTSC analog signal gets bounced around by structures and atmospheric effects until it gets smeared across 20 MHz or more. The buffer zone built in to the 6 MHz allocation has never been enough to prevent signal bleedover into the space of other stations.
Re:Usually I like Google, but in this case.... (Score:5, Insightful)
who the hell modded this insightful?
this test was designed to see if allowing broadband internet applications unlicensed use of white spaces would interfere with current hardware, such as wireless microphones.
how can such a test be conducted when there's already other sources of interference on those frequencies? unless they rule out the interference being caused by local TV broadcasts, then they can't use the test results as an acceptable metric.
frankly, i think the public would receive more benefit from broadband internet being given this dedicated spectrum rather than TV stations or wireless microphones. especially if it's used for public/municipal wi-fi deployment via WiMAX or other last mile solutions.
the internet is a public generalized data network. that means it can be used by anyone, and anyone can develop new applications for it. cellular networks, TV, radio, etc. are all closed proprietary networks which are controlled by a handful of corporations. no one is allowed to develop new applications for these networks, and thus little innovation or technological progress has occured in these networks compared to the public internet.
if we can establish a national wireless broadband infrastructure, it could be used to deliver/broadcast text, video, audio, or any other form of digital data. not only would it be a major infrastructure upgrade, but it would be a democratization of the media by decentralizing media distribution. we would just have wi-fi appliances for streaming internet radio stations rather than AM/FM radios, giving indie artists as much exposure as mainstream artists who currently dominate traditional media.
i mean, why should a few media corporations have exclusive usage rights over such a large range of the radio spectrum when the public would receive so much more benefit from those frequency ranges being used for broadband internet access?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:fantastic (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure some Mexican slashdotters will be more disgusted at you calling Mexico a "third world" country.
Crybaby (Score:3, Insightful)
This is exactly how spooks and the like hide a microphone (bug).
The best way is to have it transmit within the exact same frequency or spectrum that another service uses.
If you use low enough power for your transmitter, you minimize collateral receivers being able to pick your signal up, while at the same time making it near impossible to track or find the bug.
Google's guy is just pissed he got one-upped. The FCC did this entirely within the realm of what would happen in the real world.
Sometimes it sucks to come out from behind the keyboard and discover real world stuff, huh?
--Toll_Free
Re:Oh My! (Score:2, Insightful)
That joke is so 4 years ago with John Kerry.
Re:fantastic (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, Mexico is in the first world. Well, it was, when that and terms in its family had meaning. Since Mexico was pretty firmly in the US sphere of influence, it lands squarely there. A country like the former East Germany would have been in the 2nd world, along with other Soviet aligned sattelite states. A country like, say, Kenya, would be in the 3rd world of unaligned non-powers. Mexico could be called poor, except that it is actually a resource rich country with a lot of potential that is being wasted due to a controlling oligarchy. Perhaps the best current term would be "developing," though even that is not fully accurate. Mexico does, however, serve as a good example of the type of country you get if you let libertarian ideals of no regulation and limited government go to their natural conclusion: a few rich families control basically everything worth controlling, and a majority of everyone else is dirt poor and suffers.
Re:fantastic (Score:3, Insightful)
As far as I remember, it was never considered part of the "First World." It was never really politically aligned with the US or the USSR, so it falls into the third world. Being in the US's 'Sphere of Influence' doesn't really mean much, what matters is how closely a nation aligned with US policy.
Re:fantastic (Score:2, Insightful)
Perhaps the best current term would be "developing," though even that is not fully accurate. Mexico does, however, serve as a good example of the type of country you get if you let libertarian ideals of no regulation and limited government go to their natural conclusion: a few rich families control basically everything worth controlling, and a majority of everyone else is dirt poor and suffers.
Do you really have to go out of your way to bash some political ideology you don't like? This is about as disingenuous as saying that the United States' current economy problems is due to socialism. You come off more as a wacko paranoid over libertarians than anything else, especially because Mexico has really nothing to do with libertarianism, either in civil or economic matters. I might as well claim our shit economy is due to socialism's natural conclusions--hey, it's an outcome I don't like, so it must be the result of come political ideology I also don't like!
Come back with a real argument, then we'll talk.
Sorry to be the one to have to break this to you, but he's right.
And by the way, the current economic problems in the US are mainly due to deregulation also.
If you're trying to claim that no regulation and limited government are not the core Libertarian ideals, then I'm really not sure what to say.
Re:Usually I like Google, but in this case.... (Score:3, Insightful)
ROTFLMAO !
The arrogant one is you, thinking that the US population should be denied a very useful WiFi network because you might not still receive an analog television signal via antenna from another state. Perhaps nobody told you that you will not be receiving that signal very soon anyway?
Re:Usually I like Google, but in this case.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:fantastic (Score:3, Insightful)
I wasn't aware that Mexico was Libertarian