Archive for the ‘Internet’ Category

Experimental Radio Applications at the FCC

Sunday, July 4th, 2010

This summarizes a selection of applications for the Experimental Radio Service received by the FCC during June 2010. These are related to aircraft systems, WiMAX, sports telecast support, public safety communications, tactical cellular service, medical telemetry, satellite, antennas, radar, white-space devices, weapons telemetry, spacecraft communications, and broadcasting.

  • AAI/Textron Systems Corporation filed an application (with supporting exhibits) for experimental license. The company wants to test its Shadow 200, Aerosonde, Orbiter and other unmanned aircraft systems. This is related to work for the United States Marine Corp. Operation is to be on 310-390 MHz, 902-928 MHz, 1090 MHz, 1350-1390 MHz, 1700-1859 MHz, and 4400-4999 MHz. Transmitting equipment is manufactured by Microhard Systems Corporation, Free Wave Technologies, Advanced Microwave Products, Global Microwave Systems, and Microair Avionics.

FCC staff has asked for several items of information before approving the application. The FAA operates in the frequency bands 328.6-335.4 MHz, 1090 MHz, and 1215-1390 MHz; FCC staff asks for coordination of these bands with the FAA Regional Office. In addition, the frequency bands 225-328.6 MHz and 335.4-399.9 MHz are used for military purposes, and the applicant was asked to coordinate with NTIA’s Interdepartment Radio Advisory Committee (IRAC).

  • AAI/Textron Systems Corporation also filed an application (with supporting exhibits) for special temporary authority to operate on 420-450 MHz and 2000-2400 MHz for a government project apparently involving the Orbiter miniature unmanned aircraft system. There is not much information about the proposed operation, and FCC staff has asked for more details.

In correspondence to the applicant, FCC staff notes that the “Aerospace & Flight Test Radio Coordinating Council (AFTRCC) oversees the frequency bands; 1435-1525 MHz, 2310-2320 MHz, and 2345-2390 MHz. These frequency bands need to be removed or need to be prior coordinated.”

  • Sportvision filed an application (with supporting exhibits) for special temporary authority for testing of an automobile race track wireless data system that is to provide data communications between vehicles in a race track and one or more fixed base stations installed along a track. Operation is to be on 2395-2400 MHz.

One application seen for this system is video image enhancement for television broadcasting of automobile racing events. The would allow television viewers to see, displayed on screen, the real-time location of cars during a racing event.

The vehicles would be equipped with GPS receivers and other sensors that generate a data packet every 200 milliseconds. The wireless system would collect those packets and deliver them to a control station in real time. “The radio itself is a direct sequence spread spectrum unit, using production radios for 2.4 GHz. The system may ultimately be deployed on an unlicensed basis in the 2.4 GHz band or elsewhere, but the high noise levels in that band in the test locations (commercial automobile race tracks) are unsuitable for development and testing of the product.”

“An Intersil baseband processor performs the Direct Sequence modulation and demodulation. It is part of a five-chipset developed for the 802.11b standard. It uses 1/4th of the standard 802.11 speed resulting in a narrow occupied RF bandwidth.”

The frequency band requested is allocated on a primary basis to the Amateur Radio Service, and coordination is to be performed with the ARRL. This application was granted on June 4.

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Morgan Stanley Looks to Japan for US Internet, Mobile Trends

Wednesday, April 14th, 2010

Internet analyst Mary Meeker has released her latest update on internet trends. This updates her report from December 2009.

In the update, Meeker and her colleagues report mobile internet usage ramping up faster than desktop usage with the number of mobile users exceeding desktop users in five years. Several times the report looks to Japan for leading indicators of mobile trends in the US. Mobile network traffic continues to shift from voice to data, with NTT DOCOMO now at 90% data. It cites Rakuten Ichiba as Japan’s leading electronic commerce company with 19% of its online revenue derived from mobile.

The report sees 3G is seen as key to the success of the mobile internet, but options such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are growing rapidly. Network traffic growth, driven by video, is expected to rise 39-times by 2014, for a compound annual growth rate of 108%.

The report documents the growth in social-networking applications. Facebook is now the top-downloaded iPhone/iTouch application.

In 2008, desktop internet revenue was dominated by advertising and electronic commerce paid by the vendor or advertiser. Also for 2008, and in contrast, mobile internet revenue was dominated by premium content revenue paid by the user.

At the end of the presentation, we see a comparison of the mobile internet revenue mix between Japan and the rest of the world. Mobile internet revenue is broken down into four categories: mobile advertising, mobile paid services, mobile online commerce, and mobile data access. The analysis shows that the rest-of-world percentage breakdown by category in 2008 is similar to Japan’s in 2000. The implication is that the rest-of-the-world should look at what Japan has been doing more recently, since the rest-of-the-world may trend toward that. What’s “that?” A higher share of mobile internet revenue from mobile advertising, mobile paid services, and mobile online commerce, and a lower share from mobile data access.

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