I read with interest this evening an article entitled Wireless advances could mean no more cell towers and saw:
> "If it is what they claim, lightRadio could be a highly disruptive force within the wireless industry," said Dan Hays, who focuses on telecommunications at consulting firm PRTM.
> Rasmus Hellberg, director of technical marketing at wireless technology developer Qualcomm Inc., said smaller cells can boost a network's capacity tenfold, far more than can be achieved by other upgrades to wireless technology that are also in the works.
> That's sure to draw the interest of phone companies. They've already been deploying older generations of small-cell technology in areas where a lot of people gather, like airports, train stations and sports stadiums, but these are expensive and complicated to install.
Although I didn't take the time to sift through all the material, I started to wonder if the "lightRadio" solution ( http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/features/light_radio/index.html ) is the same or possibly even a different alternative to the technology being discussed in the [msg=50622]How the FCC Plans to Destroy GPS[/msg] and [msg=50797]Potential GPS Interruption - Letter from Council[/msg] threads.
The times... they are a-changin'.
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Ladd Nelson
I came across this issue a little while ago, the gist of it is these blocks cannot replace towers as they are insufficient in capacity; however they work great for spotty or temporary extra capacity. I presume they operate at the same frequencies towers do currently though as cell phones only have a limited range.
I think the GPS issue comes into play with a company trying to market cell coverage based with satellites.
No, the problem with the LightSquared plan is not that it uses satellites.
The problem is that there is a loophole in the regulations that they want to exploit that would let them put terrestrial transmitters on satellite frequencies very close to the GPS frequencies. When a GPS receiver is close to the terrestrial transmitter, it has trouble sorting out the signals and you lose GPS accuracy or any sort of coverage. Garmin submitted a report that said aircraft GPS could be affected at distances on the order of 10 miles.
