John:
Although inspired inventors, such as Bernard Bossard,
have contributed tremendously to the developmemt of
new enginneering systems during the last 50 years,
most modern telecommunication systems have become
extremely complex and require large engineering
teams to look at different aspects of the system.
I have not looked at Bossard's patent applications,
but I believe his patents are in the microwaves
system side of LMDS. My concerns center more on
the communications engineerng side. To date, CVUS has
deployed a) a wireless cable service, and b) a
one-way broadband data (Internet provider) service.
These are the easiest to provide with a rudimentary
system architecture. What will make LMDS a truly
compelling technlogy are: a) video on demand or
''almost'' on demand, and b) two-way data service.
Both of these services would knock-out the competition
As long as CVUS offers just a standard cable
TV like service, there is only limited reason
for users to switch. However, bring in video on
demand, such as the ability to select movies from
a video library, or selecting arbitrary live
sports events, and you bring in all the high-end users
(those willing to pay a premium for a unique service).
The same holds for two-way broadband data access:
I bet there are lots of businesses in Manhattan
which would love to have a T3-like connection to
other offices around the country.
The communications systems needed for both of these
applications are significantly more complex than the
current CVUS system-- since they require the selection
of protocols for sharing the same medium. Also, up to
this point, CVUS has not put much emphasis on bandwidth
efficiency, since it has so much bandwidth. However,
at some point, it will need to be much more bandwidth
efficient if it is to support a large number of
video custmers within each of its cells. The studies
I have seen indicate that LMDS has the capacity of
delivering between 1 and 2 bits/Hz/sec, which would
give about 2 Gigabits/sec for the LMDS license.
What I am saying is that LMDS has amazing capabilities
as a technology, and I would love it if CVUS took
more advantage of this potential, instead of behaving
like a boring cable TV/IP company. |
