Mardy, back in the archives of the Q! thread, I explained how a better pricing system than Flat Rate or Charging Like a Wounded Bull would work. Essentially, a base station at the Qualcomm stadium would notice as soon as Babe Ruth scored a touchdown that the handsets would all start phoning home with the exciting news. Suppose also that a lady simultaneously decided that she had left a pot on the stove or somebody got so excited over the big moment that they started getting fatal fibrillations.
So, whose call should the base station handle, since it is about to go over the capacity limits? At the moment, they run on the basis of first come first served. So a thousand people who want to report the score get through and all the rest get a busy signal. Which means the lady's dinner burns and a deceased estate is formed.
I think a better system is to have a price auction - the base station puts the price up as the load builds so that new callers get a sign on their handset saying "CURRENT PRICE IS $30 per minute", "Press SEND" to accept these charges. That way urgent calls could always get through. No more busy signals.
I also went into all the details and there has been a lot of discussion of the idea, I even offered US$100 reward for a reason why it wouldn't work. John Cuthbertson came closest to winning by saying the USA government wouldn't allow it. But since they are grappling with the concept of Calling Party Pays in an act of intellectual brilliance, they might cope with the concept of a market priced minute. Not an easy call in the Land of Free Enterprise, Free and Brave, Capitalism, Market Economics and all that jazz because it is really a land of protectionism, trade restrictions, guilds, government, tariffs and BS same as elsewhere [though not as much].
To cut a long story short, I nicknamed the basestation "Babe" in honour of Babe Ruth, that amazing footballing icon of Italian American, Irish American, Indian American, Native American, Sioux American, African American, Lagos, Nigerian or Niger American, Sexual Preference American, Left-Handed American, Gender American, or whatever 'Brand' he was. Personally, I think it's more important whether a person can score those touchdowns than what 'brand' one wears, [Touchups being frowned on and likely to get you an impeachment hearing in the Senate in the current prurient sport of "who has had the most pecadilloes?" - many of the politicians seeming to be in the competition. The poor Republicans have been totally outclassed by Clinton who brought to bear Cuban cigars, the Oval Office, many 'Babes', and provided over a year of action for the media frenzy and entertainment for the masses].
Oops, I digress.
Anyway, Mummy Babe [a neologism - so ha! ha! ha! to SurferM if he's reading this] would be the main base station at Qualcomm Stadium and the 'Standalone Babes' would be little, minicell base stations, umbilically attached, via radio links from underground areas, normally impenetrable to cdmaOne signals, back to 'Mummy Babe'.
At the time of the discussion, there was a bullfighter gored right in the most tender area of one's anatomy, being carried on a horn by the bull, replete with the colourful picadore stabbing things hanging from the bull's back with blood all over the bull's shoulders. It was an amazing photo in a stadium similar to Qualcomm Stadium - hence the expression, 'Horns of a dilemma'. The bullfighter did survive, though I doubt the bull did, even though the bull really was the winner, but I doubt Juan would feel like fighting bulls anytime soon. There was a caption contest for the photo, the winner being "Hole in Juan!"
I hope this explains it!
Maurice
PS: I'll leave the GPS as best choice debate and remain an interested bystander because I don't have enough information to argue the case. At present I'm happy to trust Q! judgement based on their success so far, whereas Ericy synchronisation might work, but they wanted convoluted logic coding too, which is no good. They also chose silly chip rates and thought CDMA couldn't work in mobile, so they are hardly the ones to lead the charge to Utopia. |
