Good point. They have changed the meaning of "unlimited" to something contrarian. Very "Alice in Wonderland".
But given that "unlimited" doesn't mean what you think it means, even then if their top tiered plan is 5GB, wouldn't it be rational to expect that the "unlimited" plan is a notch above the top tiered plan. Yet it is not.
As a rare techdirt citizen who is in favor of tiered pricing, I agree that this is exactly the kind of implementation that makes people hate their carrier.
Here's three ways they could have made this work better/fairly:
- make the cut-off a clear cut, publicized, no BS, 5GB for "unlimited" customers
- make the throttling drop speeds to a usable, but noticeably slower 128Kbps - NOT the unusable trickle they current throttle to.
- alert the user pro-actively BEFORE they reach the threshold, not just as it is reached.
If they had done that, they would have been able to argue "unlimited" semi-credibly. As it is, I have to agree with Masnick that it looks not like a way to manage "data hogs", but a way to force legacy 'unlimited' users to switch to tiered plans.
Strange that it is so against the Laws of Physics, yet the NTIA testing concluded that LS interfered with older legacy GPS devices, yet current smartphones with GPS could determine their location during testing.
Somehow these phones defied the laws of physics? Listen, I don't care how well/not well it worked in the smartphones. The fact is that it worked. That is enough to prove that we aren't talking about something that is totally impossible.
I'm totally on board with the people here arguing that LS interfered with legacy devices, and that this is not acceptable. But I don't buy into the "LS defied the laws of physics" line so many have repeated, nor do I understand the anger or glee with which it is delivered.
...and Apple's original Apple TV was $200, but Jobs later released a version for $99. Thin is in. Lowest cost to meet today's needs. Future proofing be damned.
To be fair, Samsung has launched just such a modular system, but I didn't get into it in the article because it's a detail. How many mass market PC owners upgrade the processors in their PCs? Are they really going to upgrade the processor in their TV!
Right. The ports, and interconnected digital home technologies are what counts. Make it stream from Samba or DLNA or Apple file shares, and I'm interested. I want the TV to be a fantastically connectable monitor. I can locate the smarts someplace else...in fact I can use smarts I already have.
Sure I have. The same could be said for smartphones. But which TV manufacturer increases the cost of their current TVs so that in 3 years they will still have up to date memory and processing power? None. They build them to get sold today.
Android, as you brought up, is a great example. Ask the people with Xperia X10s or Galaxy S (I) what they think of your theory of infinite upgradability. The upgrades are slow to be delivered, and soon never are. These devices will never see Ice Cream Sandwich.
"the TVs are network-enabled, and play content off the internet - so why wouldn't they be upgradable the same way?"
So is your smartphone...but you can't do today's leading apps and games on your 2-year old smartphone. Just ask anyone with a T-Mobile G1.
The problem is the processor, memory, and other hardware. It is bought and paid for at a fixed point in time. Prices drop, Moore's law moves on, and the later TVs are much more powerful. Your TV OEM doesn't need to support your TV so much, since you've already bought it. They worry about selling the latest customers, so they put better and more features in the latest TVs, and orphan yours.
Yeah. I concede that point. "Sloppy" does not apply to the work done by the GPS community. Their work was done to the appropriate tolerances and economics of the time, and the results are freaking amazing. To say the GPS inventors screwed up would be like saying Isaac Newton knew nothing of physics because he didn't get relativity. Yet the genius of the early work is clear.
But that does not mean that the receivers, by modern standards, aren't a little sloppy, does it? Even at the time, GPS receivers *could have* been designed to tighter tolerances, but were not, correct?
It looks like I've stumbled upon a war between the LS guys and the GPS camp. So people are hyper-sensitive. But if it's a question of taking sides, I would rather not. I'm more interested in the "new competitor" angle of this story. But if my post has put me on a side, it's probably the GPS side when I note that: "...who is at fault is irrelevant: it remains LightSquared's problem to solve if they want to launch their network."
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: sigh, please learn some basics
Jeff,
I'm not LightSquared. I didn't change the rules of anything. I just wish their plan had worked.
And you're saying that GPS used weak filtering because of (what we agree were) good assumption does not mean that it is not weak filtering.
Geez. Nowhere do I say that GPS should ever have been done differently. Under the circumstances and time that it was built, it's a freaking miracle. It's great technology, uber useful, and I don't want it to go away. As it is, it takes priority over LS.
But it does receive interference from adjacent spectrum despite the fact that technology exists to prevent that. Is that so hard to admit?
Should I be ashamed of stating that fact? Some people in the GPS community are obviously so damned mad at LS that they don't even want to concede that water is wet.
There seems to be a lot of overall anger with LS's purchase of spectrum on the cheap. But someone needs to explain to me all the ways we can get more competition in the US without an easier path to market than bidding at auction against the deep pocketws at AT&T and Verizon.
Even when other players win spectrum at auction, like the cable companies, it often ends up getting re-sold to the biggest carriers, who simply have a better ability to leverage and monetize the spectrum.
Sure LS got spectrum on the cheap, but it wasn't exactly beach-front property, was it? It came encumbered with a sensitive neighbor, and if you aggravated them, you got shut down. That's a lot of risk, thus the spectrum is rightly low-priced.
And, so long as we're being angry with LS getting this risky spectrum for a low price, why not funnel some angst at all the TV stations, broadcasters, etc. who got loads of free spectrum for TV decades ago, and who have been monetizing it ever since. Or the last-mile service providers who got free access to trench our towns and nation? Or the railways who were given so much land? There is a long history of giving away public real estate to build national networks because of the benefit those networks might impart. Spread your anger around.
We shouldn't approve, go blindly full steam ahead, or just launch things that are "nigh on impossible". But it seems like a really good idea to let people attack the problem in a conditional trial.
When Kennedy said we'd set foot on the moon within the 60's, it was nigh on impossible.
In a similar way that Analog TV broadcasts are a waste of spectrum, because they are using 1940s technology which is currently seen as inefficient, the GPS industry is using 1980s technology, which is analog and built with certain assumptions about what kind of precision would be needed in the radios.
Those 1980s assumptions are now stale dated. Now, hear me clearly: I'm not saying that the GPS sector should update all their equipment (in fact, I say the contrary in the article). But I do say that they sloppily listen to the adjacent frequencies. That is what it is, and LS must deal with that reality.
Sure, but CDMA was widely know to be impossible through the 80s and early 90s, which is why almost all the cellular carriers in the world opted for the less spectrally efficient Time Divisioning TDMA.
If you know your radio history, you'll know that Qualcomm pulled it off shortly thereafter.
You guys arguing that it was stupid to even try might miss out on some great innovations:
- for some time, it was thought impossible to break the sound barrier
- UWB technologies can communicate right over (under) existing analog technologies without interfering
- Spread spectrum technologies allow conflicting wireless signals to co-exist
So, even if it was unlikely, it seems like it's awfully conceited to say that it could never work, and should absolutely not be attempted. What did the US public lose here? Could we have gained something? Did we take any risk in this brief, 1 year experiment?
If a company like LS thinks they can do something, because modern technology enables it...and they are willing to risk their own PRIVATE money on testing it out, well then I'm all for that test. If it works, bully for them. If it doesn't, it's up to them to try something else.
Nah, not me. I would REALLY love to see LS emerge on the market, but not at the expense of GPS. If they could have made it work, then great, but if not, then rescinding the waiver is correct.
We'll need to look for other spectra, other technical solutions, and other entrants to add more competition to the market.
Once again, comments that focus on the part of the plan that (obviously) failed. We're in agreement that they could not play nice with the neighbors, and were thus shut down.
That's not the part that was discussed as scrappy. The scrappy part was the way they were going to go to market, the wholesale model, the technologies they would implement, their openness to innovators and startups. That is what we just lost.
PS: "I'm not an expert on signals, but I do have a degree in electrical and computer engineering and have taken 300 level college courses on systems and signals (both analog and digital)."
Is that sarcastic, or not? I'd say that pretty much qualifies you as an expert.
On the post: Study Confirms What You Already Knew: Mobile Data Throttling About The Money, Not Stopping Data Hogs
Re: Unlimited abuse
But given that "unlimited" doesn't mean what you think it means, even then if their top tiered plan is 5GB, wouldn't it be rational to expect that the "unlimited" plan is a notch above the top tiered plan. Yet it is not.
As a rare techdirt citizen who is in favor of tiered pricing, I agree that this is exactly the kind of implementation that makes people hate their carrier.
Here's three ways they could have made this work better/fairly:
- make the cut-off a clear cut, publicized, no BS, 5GB for "unlimited" customers
- make the throttling drop speeds to a usable, but noticeably slower 128Kbps - NOT the unusable trickle they current throttle to.
- alert the user pro-actively BEFORE they reach the threshold, not just as it is reached.
If they had done that, they would have been able to argue "unlimited" semi-credibly. As it is, I have to agree with Masnick that it looks not like a way to manage "data hogs", but a way to force legacy 'unlimited' users to switch to tiered plans.
On the post: Why You Should Regret LightSquared's Setbacks
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Somehow these phones defied the laws of physics? Listen, I don't care how well/not well it worked in the smartphones. The fact is that it worked. That is enough to prove that we aren't talking about something that is totally impossible.
I'm totally on board with the people here arguing that LS interfered with legacy devices, and that this is not acceptable. But I don't buy into the "LS defied the laws of physics" line so many have repeated, nor do I understand the anger or glee with which it is delivered.
On the post: Smart TVs: Not Such A Smart Idea
Re: Consumer Hype
On the post: Smart TVs: Not Such A Smart Idea
Re: I see your point, but somewhat disagree.
On the post: Smart TVs: Not Such A Smart Idea
Re:
On the post: Smart TVs: Not Such A Smart Idea
Re:
On the post: Smart TVs: Not Such A Smart Idea
Re:
On the post: Smart TVs: Not Such A Smart Idea
Re:
But for your point, how about "Set Twin Device", or STD? I think that has a ring to it.
On the post: Smart TVs: Not Such A Smart Idea
Re:
Android, as you brought up, is a great example. Ask the people with Xperia X10s or Galaxy S (I) what they think of your theory of infinite upgradability. The upgrades are slow to be delivered, and soon never are. These devices will never see Ice Cream Sandwich.
On the post: Smart TVs: Not Such A Smart Idea
Re: The article presupposes...
So is your smartphone...but you can't do today's leading apps and games on your 2-year old smartphone. Just ask anyone with a T-Mobile G1.
The problem is the processor, memory, and other hardware. It is bought and paid for at a fixed point in time. Prices drop, Moore's law moves on, and the later TVs are much more powerful. Your TV OEM doesn't need to support your TV so much, since you've already bought it. They worry about selling the latest customers, so they put better and more features in the latest TVs, and orphan yours.
On the post: Why You Should Regret LightSquared's Setbacks
Re: I take offense to this
But that does not mean that the receivers, by modern standards, aren't a little sloppy, does it? Even at the time, GPS receivers *could have* been designed to tighter tolerances, but were not, correct?
It looks like I've stumbled upon a war between the LS guys and the GPS camp. So people are hyper-sensitive. But if it's a question of taking sides, I would rather not. I'm more interested in the "new competitor" angle of this story. But if my post has put me on a side, it's probably the GPS side when I note that: "...who is at fault is irrelevant: it remains LightSquared's problem to solve if they want to launch their network."
On the post: Why You Should Regret LightSquared's Setbacks
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: sigh, please learn some basics
I'm not LightSquared. I didn't change the rules of anything. I just wish their plan had worked.
And you're saying that GPS used weak filtering because of (what we agree were) good assumption does not mean that it is not weak filtering.
Geez. Nowhere do I say that GPS should ever have been done differently. Under the circumstances and time that it was built, it's a freaking miracle. It's great technology, uber useful, and I don't want it to go away. As it is, it takes priority over LS.
But it does receive interference from adjacent spectrum despite the fact that technology exists to prevent that. Is that so hard to admit?
Should I be ashamed of stating that fact? Some people in the GPS community are obviously so damned mad at LS that they don't even want to concede that water is wet.
On the post: Why You Should Regret LightSquared's Setbacks
Re: Re: Re:
Even when other players win spectrum at auction, like the cable companies, it often ends up getting re-sold to the biggest carriers, who simply have a better ability to leverage and monetize the spectrum.
Sure LS got spectrum on the cheap, but it wasn't exactly beach-front property, was it? It came encumbered with a sensitive neighbor, and if you aggravated them, you got shut down. That's a lot of risk, thus the spectrum is rightly low-priced.
And, so long as we're being angry with LS getting this risky spectrum for a low price, why not funnel some angst at all the TV stations, broadcasters, etc. who got loads of free spectrum for TV decades ago, and who have been monetizing it ever since. Or the last-mile service providers who got free access to trench our towns and nation? Or the railways who were given so much land? There is a long history of giving away public real estate to build national networks because of the benefit those networks might impart. Spread your anger around.
On the post: Why You Should Regret LightSquared's Setbacks
Re:
Silly.
We shouldn't approve, go blindly full steam ahead, or just launch things that are "nigh on impossible". But it seems like a really good idea to let people attack the problem in a conditional trial.
When Kennedy said we'd set foot on the moon within the 60's, it was nigh on impossible.
On the post: Why You Should Regret LightSquared's Setbacks
Re: Re: Re: sigh, please learn some basics
In a similar way that Analog TV broadcasts are a waste of spectrum, because they are using 1940s technology which is currently seen as inefficient, the GPS industry is using 1980s technology, which is analog and built with certain assumptions about what kind of precision would be needed in the radios.
Those 1980s assumptions are now stale dated. Now, hear me clearly: I'm not saying that the GPS sector should update all their equipment (in fact, I say the contrary in the article). But I do say that they sloppily listen to the adjacent frequencies. That is what it is, and LS must deal with that reality.
On the post: Why You Should Regret LightSquared's Setbacks
Re: Re: Re: Re: Whose problem was it?
If you know your radio history, you'll know that Qualcomm pulled it off shortly thereafter.
You guys arguing that it was stupid to even try might miss out on some great innovations:
- for some time, it was thought impossible to break the sound barrier
- UWB technologies can communicate right over (under) existing analog technologies without interfering
- Spread spectrum technologies allow conflicting wireless signals to co-exist
So, even if it was unlikely, it seems like it's awfully conceited to say that it could never work, and should absolutely not be attempted. What did the US public lose here? Could we have gained something? Did we take any risk in this brief, 1 year experiment?
If a company like LS thinks they can do something, because modern technology enables it...and they are willing to risk their own PRIVATE money on testing it out, well then I'm all for that test. If it works, bully for them. If it doesn't, it's up to them to try something else.
On the post: Why You Should Regret LightSquared's Setbacks
Re: Limits ofsignal filtering
On the post: Why You Should Regret LightSquared's Setbacks
Re:
We'll need to look for other spectra, other technical solutions, and other entrants to add more competition to the market.
On the post: Why You Should Regret LightSquared's Setbacks
Re:
That's not the part that was discussed as scrappy. The scrappy part was the way they were going to go to market, the wholesale model, the technologies they would implement, their openness to innovators and startups. That is what we just lost.
On the post: Why You Should Regret LightSquared's Setbacks
Re: sigh, please learn some basics
Is that sarcastic, or not? I'd say that pretty much qualifies you as an expert.
Next >>