TV problem

[snip]

We (the staff of the FCC) knew that the maps and the then "licensee database" (really a big print file) were riddled with errors, and so made all licensees reapply for their licenses (at no cost). The biggest problem was that the latitudes and longitudes were usually in error, sometimes grossly so, and it mattered because we were going to use propagation models running on these newfangled computers to predict actual service areas and required spacings, all in an effort to pack more users into a given geographic area. Crosschecking zipcodes (which were also new then) with latitudes and longitudes helped a lot.

The founding articles on cell phone technology were published at the same time. AT&T was going to implement the technology, but the rest of industry (led by Motorola) appealed to the FCC to stop this, to instead allow unregulated industry to do the job, and this is what happened. Although nobody realized that cell phones would one day displace land lines.

Joe Gwinn

Reply to
Joseph Gwinn
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I remember when Motorola offered to give up all their old mobile phone frequencies to get what they wanted for cellular service. Some idiots thought that they could set up their own mobile phone service if they could get the licenses. They were too stupid to realize that the startup cost was huge, and that the manufacturers would stop making new equipment after Motorola shut down that service. Not only were the startup costs high, but you needed an operator on duty 24/7 and customers couldn't 'roam' and still use their old car or briefcase phones. BTW, I repaired one of those briefcase phones and had to replace the 'Gates' lead acid batteries. They were over half the weight of that crappy phone.

As far as an organized system, that is like when HBO had the Videochiper II developed to scramble C-band TV signals. They wanted to set up a single clearinghouse for everyone who used the scrambling, but the sat TV dealers didn't like that. We ended up with a real mess. Sometimes you had to change vendors to get a new channel. Others were over billing, terminating service on paid accounts, or randomly dropping channels from your package and claiming nothing was wrong.

Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

No, they knew that startup costs were larger than they could handle. Th game was to block a billion=dollar company, who would then pay to make the problem go away. A number of fortunes were founded in this manner.

Joe Gwinn

Reply to
Joseph Gwinn

Some only found out after they did a little research. Local two way radio shops with dreams of being billionaires when they couldn't take care of the few customers they already had. It was fun bursting their bubbles, for a while. It quickly turned into shooting fish in a barrel.

Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

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