Really Rocket Science

In an Ex Parte Submission yesterday, the Justice Department is asking the FCC to allocate more spectrum for wireless broadband:

Reallocating spectrum that is being underutilized would encourage the deployment of wireless services and could help to make such services more competitive with wireline offerings. First, an increase in the amount of spectrum that firms could devote to broadband would lower the cost of providing wireless broadband services and encourage entry. Second, more spectrum would allow providers to increase the capacity and reliability of their offerings, thereby bringing them closer to cable modem and fiber-based broadband. Third, the increased capacity in the systems would help support new applications. We urge the Commission to give priority to making more spectrum available to wireless broadband providers so as to maximize their potential to compete against the established wireline ones. According to the FCC Broadband Status Report, there is no time to spare, given the exploding demand for broadband mobile use, the long lags historically experienced in allocating spectrum to new uses, and the danger that "the spectrum pipeline is drying up."

We're all for it here. Good luck in getting the DoD to surrender some of its spectrum. We have a better chance is getting of that "white space" made available by the digital transition by broadcasters.

The DoJ is correct in citing direct-broadcast satellite's introduction as bringing true competition to the video marketplace, and making more spectrum available to wireless broadband services will likely have the same effect.

Judge says no to SES, via Space News...

The U.S. bankruptcy court handling the sale of satellite operator ProtoStar Ltd.’s assets on Dec. 10 rejected a proposed deal between ProtoStar and prospective buyer SES, clearing the way for a wide-open Dec. 16 auction of the in-orbit ProtoStar 2 telecommunications satellite. SES is likely to confront at least one other serious bidder at the auction — Asiasat of Hong Kong — and may also face a bid from satellite fleet operator Intelsat, industry officials said. The Delaware Bankruptcy Court refused to accept ProtoStar’s proposed arrangement with SES under which SES agreed, in advance of the auction, to pay $185 million in cash for ProtoStar 2 on condition that it receive $6.3 million in compensation in the event it was outbid. That meant SES was assured of taking ownership of ProtoStar 2 unless another bidder was willing to pay more than $191.3 million for the satellite. Industry officials said the decision means ProtoStar 2 ultimately could sell for less than $185 million, depending on how badly Asiasat wants the spacecraft, a Boeing 601HP model launched in May and stationed at 107.7 degrees east longitude in geostationary orbit. It carries 27 Ku-band transponders and 13 S-band transponders. The S-band capacity is leased to Indostar and Indovision of Indonesia. SES and Asiasat both have orbital slots nearby and could move ProtoStar 2 to these positions without losing the Indonesian S-band business. Washington- and Bermuda-based Intelsat does not have an active orbital position in the neighborhood, but its representatives nonetheless have been active in the ProtoStar 2 preauction proceedings and attended the Dec. 10 hearing as well, according to bankruptcy court records of the meeting. Aside from SES, Asiasat and Intelsat, no other satellite operators or prospective buyers appeared at the court hearing, according to the list of attendees. Officials from all three companies declined Dec. 11 to discuss their strategies for ProtoStar 2. Intelsat won the ProtoStar 1 satellite at auction in late October, paying $210 million in cash. Intelsat plans to move the satellite, now called Intelsat 25, to 31.5 degrees west, where its C-band payload will provide communications links between Africa and the United States. The Ku-band payload will be used for a beam over West Africa, according to Intelsat.

Great flashback on Make:Online and Barminski:

OK, you're not really going to drink beer on C-SPAN or Larry King Live. But you can make it look like you did on video. I don't know why you'd want to, but let's just say you do. I know I did.

The method used to achieve this effect is called compositing. You will need a source video recorded from a television show, a replacement video you will shoot yourself, and a static matte — a shape cut out of the source video with Photoshop to hold the new video.

Materials

C-SPAN
Analog-to-video capture device
Final Cut Pro and Photoshop
Video camera
Tripod
Beer
Microphone to record belch
Business suit

 More from Barminski.

Maker Channel 103 – Smoke Rings, Theremin Orchestra, Pulse-Jet, Beer on CSPAN from make magazine on Vimeo.

From the Space Elevator Games...

Keep up with developments via the Space Elevator Blog. Next month, a conference in Luxembourg.

Viasat announces it is buying WildBlue Communications for $568M in cash and stock.

[TheStreet.com  - 10/01/2009]

Thales Alenia Space signs contract with APT Satellite Company Limited to design and build APSTAR 7, to provide broadcasting and communications services over the Asia Pacific, Africa, Middle East, and part of Europe.
[SatNews - 10/01/2009]

Ariane 5 delivers two payloads to orbit; Amazonas 2 for Spain's HISPASAT, the COMSATBw-1 for Germany.
[SatNews - 10/01/2009]

EGNOS, a free satellite navigation network, is launched by the European Union, intended to help pilots, drivers, and blind people by fine tuning GPS accuracy to within 2 meters..
[SatNews - 10/01/2009]

Terrestar Genus hybrid satellite/cell phone is coming to AT&T.
[Digital Trends - 10/01/2009]

Comtech EFData gets $1.1M order from U.S. government for equipment to support the government's satellite-based communications infrastructure.
[Newsday - 10/01/2009]

TeleCommunications Systems gets $11.7M contract from U.S. Army to provide additional Secret Internet Protocal Router and Non-secure Int ernet Protocal Router FSAT systems to the United States Forces Afghanistan.
[Sys-Con - 10/01/2009]

Soyuz TMA-16 launch carries Jeffrey Williams and Maxim Suraev of the 21st space station crew into space for a six month stay aboard the International Space Station.
[SatNews - 09/30/2009]

B-52 bombers will be getting a new satellite communications system, to be developed and installed by Boeing.
[Minot  Daily News - 09/30/2009]

NSS-12 satellite, the first satellite built by Space Systems/Loral for SES NEW SKIES, is delivered to Kourou launch base for October 29 scheduled launch.
[TMCnet - 09/30/2009]

THOR 6, aTelenor's latest satellite, arrives safely at Guiana Spaceport In Kourou for scheduled end of October launch.
[SatNews - 09/29/2009]

Terrestar will be able to deliver the most advanced communications services over a large area using a single satellite instead of multiple satellites using 18-meter antenna deflector built and successfully deployed by Harris.
[TMCnet -09/29/2009]

KVH TracPhone FleetBroadband systems receive new "505" emergency calling service which routes calls directly to Coast Guard rescue centers worldwide.
[PRNewswire - 09/28/2009]

China plans to build and launch a communications satellite for Laos.
[RedOrbit - 09/27/2009]

WBMSAT PS - Satellite Communications Consulting Services

We've been ready for the digital transition, with a DB4 antenna locked on to local broadcasts. Haven't gotten my new coupons yet (the old ones expired, which was stupid).

The FCC is giving it one last push, evidenced by this appearance on CNBC:

On trash days, there seem to be lots of old TVs at the curb. Then, on cardboard recycling days, plenty of boxes from big LCD and Plasma TVs. Kind of makes sense to me. 

Hey, instead of just throwing them out, think about recycling/repurposing them. Take, for instance, this working fish tank inside an old floor model...

 Here's a "top ten ways to recycle an old TV," courtesy of TopTenReviews.com:

1. Recycle- Televisions can contain lead, mercury, cadmium and other dangerous materials and if disposed of improperly these materials will leak into the soil. This may seem like an obvious option but many people don’t even know that television recycling exists. Even if you decide to keep the TV and just remove its guts look for a proper way to recycle the insides. Most major retailers and manufactures are working to increase television recycling awareness. Go to Earth 911 or Plug-in to eCycling for recycling locations and more information.

2. Donate- Schools especially could use the extra TV love. Most schools have televisions in class rooms on closed circuits or use them to show movies and National Geographic specials. Old TVs will still work with DVD players and VCRs.

3. Give it to the Kids- How many times can you stand to watch Disney DVDs? Put the old set in the kids’ room and let them watch their favorite DVDs and you can have a few moments of peace and quiet.

4. Make an Aquarium- You know you’ve always wanted to make your television into a fish tank. Now is your chance.

5. Use it as an End Table- Those with really old sets that have large wooden enclosures know exactly what this means.

6. Make Art- If people made toilets into art, who’s to say that an old television set can’t be made into art? Use your imagination people.

7. Build a Coffee Table- Turn your television on its back, stabilize, place a piece of glass over top and voila´ you have a coffee table. Hey, you could even hook up a DVD player and have movies play or picture slide shows.

8. Build a Tesla Coil- Take extreme caution if attempting this task. As a matter of fact, forget we ever suggested building a Tesla Coil. They are dangerous and this should only be attempted by professionals.

9. Build a Video Game Machine- For those that like to combine construction and technology you can build an old arcade type console and hook up an old Nintendo or Sega. Pac-Man rules!

10. Make a Planter- Yeah, that’s right, carefully gut the television and make a fun flower planter.

 Personally, I like HackedGadgets.com's Top 5, such as this wave vessel:

All your satcom news is mine, via Bill McDonald:

TacSat 3 launch scrubbed May 7 due to bad weather in Wallops Island area.
[Satnews - 05/08/2009]

Russia successfully places Express AM44 satellite, named after A.S. Popov, into operation at 11 West within the Russian Satellite Communications Company satellite constellation.
[Satnews - 05/07/2009]

Pathfinder Space Tracking and Surveillance System (STSS) Advance Technology Risk Reduction (ATRR) satellite successfully launched from Vandenberg AFB by the Missile3 Defense Agency, supported by NASA and commercial firm United Launch Alliance.
[Satnews - 05/07/2009]

Planned acquisition of DataPath by Rockwell Collins receives approval of stockholders.
[Satnews - 05/07/2009]

El Corte Ingles will distribute Eutelsat's Tooway satellite broadband service to retail customers in Spain.
[Satellite Today - 05/07/2009]

Space Systems/Loral  is selected to provide new communication s satellite, AsiaSat 5C, to Asia Satellite Telecommunications Company Limited.
[Satnews - 05/07/2009]

TacSat-3 is  scheduled for May 7 launch from Wallops Island; features 3 revolutionary trials including Raytheon's advance imaging spectrometer, Air Force avionics experiment, and Office of Naval Research's satellite communications package.
[NASA - 05/06/2009]

DirecTV merger with John Malone's Liberty Entertainment results in simplification of DirecTV's ownership, setting the stage for future deals.
[Satnews - 05/06/2009]

KVH debuts TracPhone FB150, 10.5" in diameter and 12" high, to offer small, cost effective broadband internet package for maritime applications, suited for boats as small as 40 ft.
[TMC Net - 05/06/2009]

C2SAT, actively working to establish a new presence in China covering local production facilities and product sales, is rewarded by largest single order to date, seven C2SAT 2.4m C-band antennas within six months.
[Satnews - 05/06/2009]

HD DTH satellite service to be offered in Phillipines by the Phillippine Long Distance Telephone Company and MediaQuest.
[Satellite Today - 05/06/2009]

Echo Satellite, offering satellite communications "hotspots" enabling wireless coverage for multiple users in any non-line-of-sight environment, changes name to SatMax in response to request from EchoStar Corp.
[Houston Business Journal - 05/05/2009]

Spacenet Inc. provides transportable satellite communications solutions to Erie Insurance for mobile claim centers.
[Globe Newswire - 05/05/2009]

Australian government's national high-speed national broadband strategy, "Ruddnet", focusing on 100mbps fiber connectivity to 90% of the population, and 12 mbps satellite connectivity to the rest, divides the nation.
[The Australian - 05/05/2009]

NASA officials lobby for extension of shuttle program to close gap between shuttle program and debuting of the Ares/Orion manned flight capability.
[R&D magazine - 05/04/2009]

U.S. military to launch experimental tactical satellite to demonstrate inexpensive user-friendly space technologies.
[Space.com - 05/04/2009]

AT&T CruiseCast car satellite system for in-car video, currently offering 22 channels, is soft-launched at select retail outlets.
[twice-com - 05/04/2009]

Giga-Com delivers satellite broadcast solutions to Kuwaiti government.
[Satellite Today - 05/04/2009]

French Airline installs Panasonic satellite in-flight entertainment system.
[Satellite Today - 05/04/2009]

Australian satellite company Codan acquires Locus Microwave.
[Satellite Today - 05/04/2009]

KVH announces promotion to make it easier for "big dish" maritime users to "move down" to the KVH "mini-VSAT" broadband service using the TracPhone V7(R) hardware.
[PR Newswire - 05/04/2009]

China Electronics Technology Group chief engineer states that China will be able to provide free global navigation and positioning services by 2020 with its own constellation of satellites named "Compass."
[Satnews - 05/04/2009]

Abu Dhabi or Dubai targeted to be host of new spaceport for space tourism in talks between Virgin Galactic and parties in the UAE.
[The National - May 3, 2009]

SatMagazine interviews Rob Bednarek, President and CEO of SES AMERICOM-NEW SKIES.
[SatMagazine, May 2009]

Finding the Next Generation Aerospace workers for the U.S. Satellite Industry (a crisis in looming in the workforce).
[SatMagazine feature - May 2009}

SatMagazine interviews Charlie Maloney, GOES N-P Program Manager for Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems, responsible for final systems test and launch preparations for next generation GOES satellites.
[SatMagazine - May 2009]

SatMagazine interviews Dr. Jesus Villasenor of M.I.T. and Mr. Luke Volpe of Dynamics Research Corp., about NASA's HETE mission.
[SatMagazine - May 2009]

NSR Report - Supervisory, Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) as well as Machine-to-Machine (M2M) services largely recession-proof; satellite platforms providing reliable ubiquitous communications to widely separated areas becoming increasingly important in these vertical markets.
[NSR Report - May 2009]

C2SAT - technology for the future - 4 axis antenna designed to increase reliability, precision, and accuracy of maritime terminal tracking of satellites for all vessels.
[SatMagazine feature - May 2009]

Cool, via Fox News:

 In 1970, Marshall Kaplan, then an aerospace engineering professor at Penn State, had a peculiar dream — he wanted to retrieve Sputnik, the world's first orbiting satellite, from space.

Sputnik had been launched by the Russians in 1957, and by 1970 it was no longer operational. Kaplan wanted to go get it.

NASA had never considered space retrieval before, but it thought it was a good idea. Kaplan got the job, but it didn't work out — because the time frame was too short. Sputnik, nearing the end of its life cycle, was already about to deorbit — the technical term for what happens when an object circling the Earth gets close enough to be caught in gravity and burned to cinders in the atmosphere.

But that didn't mean Kaplan needed a new line of work.

In fact, his work was just beginning.

 Have you ever seen the Sputnik launch from 1957? Here's the footage:

Atop Snow King mountain in Idaho, sits a new radio tower providing Internet access using new WiMAX technology. But it can do more than that.

KIFI-TV announced back in May a pioneering way of electronic news gathering that doesn't use microwave or satellite to get the live feed back to the studio:

KIFI News Group calls it WiNG or Wireless Internet News Gathering. KIFI News Group General Manager, Mark Danielson, says, "The WiNG project is based on using the Internet to send content (video and sound) from the scene of a news event back to the station for LIVE broadcast on its television stations and web sites. Danielson says, “The breakthrough is the ability for KIFI field crews to send near Broadcast Quality LIVE shots over wireless Internet."

Danielson says, "WiNG allows KIFI News Group the capability to bring its customers breaking news and information from locations that have never been accessible to routine live news gathering. What KIFI News Group has developed with DigitalBridge Communications has the potential to revolutionize news gathering.” As WiMAX is deployed across the country, Danielson says he expects ordinary news vehicles to turn into fleets of Wireless Internet News Gathering vehicles – allowing for more aggressive coverage of late breaking news and weather events. Danielson says, “In the end, consumers will win as their hunger for breaking news and weather is satisfied by faster access to breaking news from aggressive media companies like his.”

TVNewsday filed this report earlier today on how this could truly be the new scheme for live reports, especially for stations on a tight budget:

Pioneering work on adapting WiMAX for ENG is now underway at KIFI, News-Press & Gazette's ABC affiliate in Idaho Falls, Idaho.

And so far the fourth-generation wireless broadband access service is showing a lot of promise.

"This opens up a whole new world," says Mark Danielson, general manager of the KIFI News Group, who has dubbed its system Wireless Internet News Gathering or, simply, WING.

Unlike so-called third-generation, high-speed mobile technologies like EVDO, WiMAX can provide enough upstream bandwidth for live video.

It's not the best, but it is "definitely acceptable," says Danielson. "Most viewers probably couldn't tell you we're doing anything different."

Danielson can tell you about the difference in cost. Satellite is out of the question for the nation's 163rd largest market. Outfitting a microwave truck costs about $200,000.

But KIFI spent just $12,000 to equip a Toyota Highlander SUV with the necessary hardware and software to send video via WiMAX.

"Plus, I don't have to have any receive sites," Danielson says. "I just have to be in a place where WiMAX exists with Digital Bridge."

Digital Bridge Communications is the local WiMAX service provider, with which KIFI has been closely working. Its BridgeMaxx service covers much of the same ground as KIFI: Idaho Falls, Pocatello, Twin Falls, Rexburg and a number of towns in Sun Valley.

"This is a unique product that was developed for them," says Doug Smith, Digital Bridge's CIO. "This was a first for both of us and one of the first, if not the first, instances of doing broadcast over WiMAX in the U.S. that I'm aware of."

Broadcasters elsewhere may soon be able to experiment with live video via WiMax.

Using spectrum mostly in the 2.5 GHz band, WiMAX is just getting started in the United States, and it is expected to pop up in markets across the country over the next few years.

The big player is (or will be) Clearwire Corp., a planned joint venture that will include some of the biggest names in telecom and high tech: Sprint Nextel, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Bright House, Google and Intel.

Sprint Nextel, which will own 51 percent of the venture, is folding in its Xohm WiMax unit, which launched a commercial service in Baltimore just last month.

If it all comes together, Clearwire expects to roll out WiMAX service in markets covering about 140 million people by 2010.

But what works in one place may not work in another.

In Idaho, KIFI and Digital Bridge worked out a "special priority service" that guarantees KIFI 2 Mbps upstream throughput when needed for a live shot.

A guaranteed upload speed of 2 Mbps is unusual for broadband wireless service providers. Typically, they offer such speeds only for downloads and much slower upstream bit rates for keystrokes, e-mail and occasional peer-to-peer traffic.

A news operation, of course, works the other way. It needs only small swaths of downstream bandwidth and huge chunks for sending video back to the studio.

Cutting a deal for the fat upstream pipe may not be possible everywhere.

As the service becomes popular, it will be more difficult for a station to set up the sort of sweetheart deal that KIFI has with Digital Bridge. Even in Idaho Falls, the priority service is only available for regularly scheduled newscasts.

"My verbal agreement with them is around news time," said Danielson. "We're learning that their peak time also happens to be around 4 in the afternoon. It's become complicated for them, but they've been able to deliver."

A wireless service provider could be forced to choose between the larger group of customers — some of whom are corporate and paying huge fees — and a steady paycheck from a news operation.

Raycom Media, the station group based in Montgomery, Ala., is intrigued by the KIFI experiment.

David Folsom, vice president-CTO at Raycom Media, says he will probably give it a try in Lubbock, Texas, the only Raycom market where WiMAX is going to be available. A company called Xanadoo is building a system there using licensed 2.5 GHz spectrum.

"The biggest hang-up at the moment is that nobody has created the glue yet for it," says Folsom. "You have a modem and a laptop and a camera but that doesn't necessarily make a remote facility. You need all the parts and pieces."

Nobody knows that better than KIFI, which had to assemble its system form parts and pieces.

Key pieces come from Steambox, a Seattle-based company that specializes to pushing video over IP networks. It's supplying the software that runs on a laptop and encodes and compresses the video for WiMAX transmission as well as the decoder that receives and processes the signal for broadcast back at the station.

"It really became a three-way partnership between us, Digital Bridge and Streambox constantly modifying and make this technology work," says Danielson. "There really are no blueprints for doing what we're doing yet."

"We'll see long term whether the QoS [quality of service] holds up," says Folsom. "The people in the field are not IT people; they're reporters. The issue is the human interface part and we're working on that right now."

Danielson maintains that using WiMAX is not that tough, even for the non-technical types.

"They have a camera, a BridgeMAXX modem, a converter box ... and a laptop computer with the Streambox encoder software. You look at the truck and go, ‘That's it?' There's nothing to it. It's simple. There's no 40-foot mast to worry about."

Aside from the quality of the signal, Danielson's biggest worry is latency of about three interminable seconds in the talk-back between the studio and the remote site.

"We compensate by cueing the reporter about a second-and-a-half before the anchor is done talking," Danielson says. "As far as having audio and video in sync, we have not had any of those issues."

In any event, Danielson and Folsom agree that WiMAX is a step up from EVDO, a widely available wireless access service that has been adopted by many broadcasters for sending video, but only when satellite and microwave isn't possible.

Folsom says he doesn't depend on EVDO for live shots. "We use it for those circumstances in which there's no other way we can do it because we're out of our normal microwave footprint or there's some other overriding reason like the weather.

"I don't suggest for a minute that EVDO is competing with WiMAX at all, but since WiMAX's footprint is so tiny right now and EVDO is everywhere, we're using Verizon EVDO+ and it's been fairly decent for us," says Folsom. "I don't have a lot of complaints."

While EVDO is improving, Danielson won't go that way again. EVDO can't promise bandwidth, he says, noting that an upstream throughput of 1 Mbps is considered a stretch.

At least for the present, KIFI sees WiMAX as a complement to microwave, not as a substitute.

"We still rely heavily on microwave for our primary system. The only downside with microwave is it's line-of-sight to your receive towers," he says.

Eastern Idaho is mountainous so there are many spots that are out of microwave range of the station. That's where WiMAX can help. "BridgeMAXX is more like cellular technology where any place you're within a radius of a WiMAX tower you have the ability to send," says Tory Willmer, KIFI's IT manager.

That Eastern Idaho is also sparsely populated helps, Danielson adds.

Even though its spectrum is licensed, WiMAX, like any radio service, is susceptible to interference, he says. So the more remote the place, the less the chance of interference.

WiMAX is one of two fourth-generation mobile wireless technologies. LTE, or Long Term Evolution, is coming on the heels of EVDO and other third generation services and, while still several years away, promises a more ubiquitous coverage and faster upstream service.

But WiMAX is here now.

"It's a great application for broadcast," says Danielseon. "I predict this is going to be the way things are done in the future. You could have a fleet of WING vehicles with WiMAX at a fraction of the cost of a couple satellite trucks or live trucks."