A note from Jeff Schumann from Manhattan Digital

[Scott Greczkowski]

Just passing this along...

Hi Everyone,

I normally do not send to such a wide audience. Due to the subject manner, I thought it would be best.

At first I thought this was a stupid article and waste of time. But again, to prove a point, I think this is something that needs to be addressed before we sell all of our bandwidth away for myths that certain companies put upon the marketplace. The old adage of baking a cake and eating all of it too, just does not fit here!

First to prove that your technology actually works in the market for practical reasons should be required and this has not happened in real life with 5G. Then just adding a simple repeater is the most logical choice for any rural setting.

To me broadcasting TV & radio over 5G,,,,, is just stupid! Building products that can handle different medias make much more sense! Now they are talking about 6G already! Isn't this like 5K & 8K?

BBC Assesses 5G’s Broadcast Capability - Radio World

Analytics; tells us that 20% of Cell users in the USA do not have a smartphone, me included. While 5% of our population do not have a cell phone. So 25% of our population will be forced to purchase a smartphone to enjoy radio & local TV in the marketplace while they travel. Why do you think they want to deploy 5G in the rural area?

Conclusion; Upon our up-coming deployment of our ATSC 3.0 boxes in various configurations, we question the lack of fore-front and effort from our federal government through the FCC in selling the peoples bandwidth for no reason. More important, the monopolies this create is very disturbing and alarming.

The FCC is mandated by the people of this country to allow all local stations of TV and Radio to be heard everywhere. While this has been and repeatedly been bucked down the road by our Federal Government and the FCC. As I continue to hear from consumers in the rural area that they cannot get local channels, in most cases a simple repeater would be in order. A multi-purpose one at that would satisfy these consumers usage needs. This is mandated by our laws in this country and to be deployed by the FCC. Why they sell our UHF Bandwidth, the FCC wants the wireless industry to do their job. We need a better way to elect our FCC commissioners because they do not work for the people who pay their salaries. They work on behalf of political parties. I do not see that in our constitution that political parties run our country.

We can argue about this all day long, but the above story tells the real story. Deploying one service against existing and future technology is not the benefit to consumers and businesses.

Our new ATSC 3.0 boxes will deploy not only local broadcast, but IP as well. Then Manhattan-Digital will have additional ATSC 3.0 boxes that will run World Local Broadcast Standards such as T & T2, which is used in most of the world. In addition to T, T2 and ATSC 3.0, our Manhattan box can run cable and Satellite in their new compression format of S2X, all in one box. A box smaller than your hand!

So if can deploy this in a box, why cannot if be done in a phone to receive local broadcast of TV and most important, radio stations. This will only free-up more bandwidth which still cannot be carried through these wireless services effectively. No-one media service cannot do it all effectively at this time. The future may be different, but stifling future technology is whats happening when only a few companies are allowed to deploy it!

My suggestion is to contact your congressional people and support not selling our bandwidth. Which in turn will take all of our satellite systems away. So in turn we take away all of competition and new technology being deployed to give consumers options. Isn't that what our country was built on "Freedom" of choice?

Regards,
Jeff Schumann
Manhattan-Digital
608.846.1629

Note: Feel free to pass this along.

 

[c-spand]

Just passing this along...

Hi Everyone,

I normally do not send to such a wide audience. Due to the subject manner, I thought it would be best.

At first I thought this was a stupid article and waste of time. But again, to prove a point, I think this is something that needs to be addressed before we sell all of our bandwidth away for myths that certain companies put upon the marketplace. The old adage of baking a cake and eating all of it too, just does not fit here!

First to prove that your technology actually works in the market for practical reasons should be required and this has not happened in real life with 5G. Then just adding a simple repeater is the most logical choice for any rural setting.

To me broadcasting TV & radio over 5G,,,,, is just stupid! Building products that can handle different medias make much more sense! Now they are talking about 6G already! Isn't this like 5K & 8K?

BBC Assesses 5G’s Broadcast Capability - Radio World

Analytics; tells us that 20% of Cell users in the USA do not have a smartphone, me included. While 5% of our population do not have a cell phone. So 25% of our population will be forced to purchase a smartphone to enjoy radio & local TV in the marketplace while they travel. Why do you think they want to deploy 5G in the rural area?

Conclusion; Upon our up-coming deployment of our ATSC 3.0 boxes in various configurations, we question the lack of fore-front and effort from our federal government through the FCC in selling the peoples bandwidth for no reason. More important, the monopolies this create is very disturbing and alarming.

The FCC is mandated by the people of this country to allow all local stations of TV and Radio to be heard everywhere. While this has been and repeatedly been bucked down the road by our Federal Government and the FCC. As I continue to hear from consumers in the rural area that they cannot get local channels, in most cases a simple repeater would be in order. A multi-purpose one at that would satisfy these consumers usage needs. This is mandated by our laws in this country and to be deployed by the FCC. Why they sell our UHF Bandwidth, the FCC wants the wireless industry to do their job. We need a better way to elect our FCC commissioners because they do not work for the people who pay their salaries. They work on behalf of political parties. I do not see that in our constitution that political parties run our country.

We can argue about this all day long, but the above story tells the real story. Deploying one service against existing and future technology is not the benefit to consumers and businesses.

Our new ATSC 3.0 boxes will deploy not only local broadcast, but IP as well. Then Manhattan-Digital will have additional ATSC 3.0 boxes that will run World Local Broadcast Standards such as T & T2, which is used in most of the world. In addition to T, T2 and ATSC 3.0, our Manhattan box can run cable and Satellite in their new compression format of S2X, all in one box. A box smaller than your hand!

So if can deploy this in a box, why cannot if be done in a phone to receive local broadcast of TV and most important, radio stations. This will only free-up more bandwidth which still cannot be carried through these wireless services effectively. No-one media service cannot do it all effectively at this time. The future may be different, but stifling future technology is whats happening when only a few companies are allowed to deploy it!

My suggestion is to contact your congressional people and support not selling our bandwidth. Which in turn will take all of our satellite systems away. So in turn we take away all of competition and new technology being deployed to give consumers options. Isn't that what our country was built on "Freedom" of choice?

Regards,
Jeff Schumann
Manhattan-Digital
608.846.1629

Note: Feel free to pass this along.

Thank you Jeff, Great to hear from you. Don't be a stranger. I agree it doesn't seem correct and the technology is pushing us to go along. Just like 4K to 8k Tv''s. Heck there is not much 4K unless you stream it even then they had alot of trouble when they broadcasted a NFL playoff game too many users to cover the broadband. -Tony

 

[Juan]

Nobody is going to be forced to buy a cellphone for "5g" service to the home...they will be forced to use a modem ( similar to a cable modem but connects to wireless signal)... dish network is developing such a network...5g will probably not be the answer for rural internet but it will be a step forward...eventually a workable wireless soloution will emerge

Sent from my SM-G950U using the SatelliteGuys app!

 

[Trip]

My first question is why this is in the FTA forum and not the OTA forum, but this is where Scott posted it, so I will leave it be.

I also don't expect a response from Jeff to this post. That said...

So 25% of our population will be forced to purchase a smartphone to enjoy radio & local TV in the marketplace while they travel. Why do you think they want to deploy 5G in the rural area?

This is a non-sequitur. AM and FM radio spectrum is not in demand by wireless companies, while TV still has more than 100 MHz in UHF and more than 200 MHz total for its use. The Incentive Auction gave the broadcasters a chance to sell, and wireless companies a chance to buy, and despite allowing for the sale of up to 126 MHz, the market only supported a sale of 84 MHz. All the action is in higher frequencies now, and the physics problem of antenna size only gets worse when you get below 600 MHz; I wouldn't expect to see UHF TV spectrum removed further, at least at this time.

More to the point, as much as I am pro-TV, we live in a world where 95% of people are paying for cellular service in some way and there are actually more active cell phone lines than people in the country, while only up to 35% may have free OTA on at least one TV, based on the last statistics I remember seeing, which means that some of those are on secondary TVs and probably wouldn't notice much if some subset of programming were no longer available OTA. If a vote were held, where do you suppose the majority of people would suggest the lion's share of the spectrum should go? Like it or not, this is what the majority wants--it wants it so much, it pays quite a bit for data but won't take OTA TV for free.

The FCC is mandated by the people of this country to allow all local stations of TV and Radio to be heard everywhere. While this has been and repeatedly been bucked down the road by our Federal Government and the FCC. As I continue to hear from consumers in the rural area that they cannot get local channels, in most cases a simple repeater would be in order. A multi-purpose one at that would satisfy these consumers usage needs. This is mandated by our laws in this country and to be deployed by the FCC.

I don't know where you got your information, but it is incorrect. It is certainly not the FCC's job to build transmitter sites (that has never, ever been true), and the First Amendment prevents the FCC from forcing TV stations to build transmitter sites they don't want to operate. If you are aware of such a law, I would love to see it.

Our new ATSC 3.0 boxes will deploy not only local broadcast, but IP as well. Then Manhattan-Digital will have additional ATSC 3.0 boxes that will run World Local Broadcast Standards such as T & T2, which is used in most of the world. In addition to T, T2 and ATSC 3.0, our Manhattan box can run cable and Satellite in their new compression format of S2X, all in one box. A box smaller than your hand!

As someone anxious to get my hands on an ATSC 3.0 receiver that's not built into a multi-thousand dollar TV, when will this be available? If soon, I'd love to buy one and would appreciate more information on specs, pricing, and delivery dates.

So if can deploy this in a box, why cannot if be done in a phone to receive local broadcast of TV and most important, radio stations. This will only free-up more bandwidth which still cannot be carried through these wireless services effectively. No-one media service cannot do it all effectively at this time. The future may be different, but stifling future technology is whats happening when only a few companies are allowed to deploy it!

There are definitely phones out there that have radio built in. I own one, but don't use it because about half of my commute is underground (and for the other half, the local music radio stations are terrible). Otherwise, if I'm at home, I have a radio or TV nearby and don't need the radio in my phone; or if I'm in the car, it has a radio built in and don't need the radio in my phone; or if I'm elsewhere, I'm probably not there to listen to the radio.

The current TV standard does not work when in motion, so there would be no point in adding it. As far as ATSC 3.0 goes, there are presently approximately zero receivers in consumer hands at the moment, so I wouldn't expect to see it at this time. It may yet appear. But beyond that, there are vanishingly few things that could be offloaded onto broadcast that would be demanded by mobile phone users. Essentially, that is news and live sports; everything else is moving more and more to on-demand. "Good ratings" for OTA TV these days outside those categories is a 2-share, and I'm not sure how many of those would watch on their phones rather than in their living rooms. The only other thing I can think of that is broad enough in scope is pushing the data for device system updates onto broadcast.

I'm as pro-TV as they come, but I'm also realistic. More and more people are expecting more and more data, while the amount of broadcast usage is essentially flat. (This is because even as people cut cable and move to OTA, they're generally supplementing with streaming, replacing most cable viewing with streaming rather than OTA.) Even I, as a pro-broadcast person, basically watch nothing on OTA TV besides select PBS shows, and even those I stream more and more (via PBS Passport). I'm not arguing that broadcasting is doomed, but it is due for a correction. I'm 31 as of this writing, and I expect the era of hundreds of linear channels to end during my lifetime, with only a handful of the ones providing key local news and programming of wide interest (think sports or major events) remaining.

- Trip

 

[comfortably_numb]

In my opinion, the FCC botched the digital transition in 2008/2009. Signal penetration was greatly reduced, and many who had previously had access to OTA were forced to give up. My parents were part of this.

My father is an electrical engineer with a masters degree, who tried multiple antennas, tower heights, preamps, etc, and was still unable to secure reliable OTA reception at 33 miles from Columbus Ohio. Prior to the transition, they had no issues receiving all of the major channels from Columbus, Dayton, and even Cincinnati. That is not possible now. The FCC should have taken great pains to make sure that no signal loss would be associated with the digital transition, but they did not.

So to suggest that the majority "don't want" OTA is misleading- there are perhaps many people (especially in rural areas) who want OTA, but can't get it after that transition. This either points to a deliberate scheme by the FCC to force a gradual sunset of OTA (by blaming citizens not wanting it, which seems to be your stance) or an unwillingness to adopt transmission standards (DVB?) that would have been more conducive to long-range signal penetration.

 

[Trip]

In my opinion, the FCC botched the digital transition in 2008/2009. Signal penetration was greatly reduced, and many who had previously had access to OTA were forced to give up.

The ATSC standard was the one preferred by the broadcast industry, largely because it was invented in the US and because it came with lower power bills. I believe it may have also required less computing power than OFDM did at the time, making it more feasible to deploy more quickly. Sinclair fought against it, and history has proven Sinclair correct.

But more to the point, you have cause and effect backwards. Analog TV didn't go away until 2009. At that time, OTA usage was at its lowest level since its widespread adoption in the 1950s. Cord cutting started in about 2012, after the digital TV transition had occurred.

My parents were part of this.

My father is an electrical engineer with a masters degree, who tried multiple antennas, tower heights, preamps, etc, and was still unable to secure reliable OTA reception at 33 miles from Columbus Ohio. Prior to the transition, they had no issues receiving all of the major channels from Columbus, Dayton, and even Cincinnati. That is not possible now. The FCC should have taken great pains to make sure that no signal loss would be associated with the digital transition, but they did not.

With analog, there's a question of what constitutes "signal" to be "lost," since unlike digital, there is no cliff effect beyond which we can all agree there is no reception. Is it when there's a moderate amount of snow? A lot of snow? When you can't see anything, but you can still hear the audio? A friend of mine in Los Angeles bought a bunch of 10 dB attenuators and did some testing with them. He compared analog and digital signals, and as he added one after another, took some photos to record what the analog pictures looked like when the digital dropped out. He said he considered the analog to be unwatchable when the digital dropped out. I looked at his pictures and I said something to the effect of, "you call that unwatchable, but I call it UPN." I had watched Star Trek for years on a signal that looked worse than the one he said was unwatchable.

That said, I'm sorry your parents had such issues. It would be interesting to see a signal search result for their location.

So to suggest that the majority "don't want" OTA is misleading- there are perhaps many people (especially in rural areas) who want OTA, but can't get it after that transition. This either points to a deliberate scheme by the FCC to force a gradual sunset of OTA (by blaming citizens not wanting it, which seems to be your stance) or an unwillingness to adopt transmission standards (DVB?) that would have been more conducive to long-range signal penetration.

Quite honestly, ATSC works pretty well at distances. Its real problems are with multipath, whether in cities or when trying to get through trees in the rural areas.

But again, if the digital conversion was the driving force behind low OTA adoption rates, why were those rates so low in 2009, and only rising again now? Translators have been disappearing from rural areas all over the country for decades as people adopted cable and satellite, which are expensive paid services, over free OTA. While there are definitely people who lost service in the transition, and having grown up in a house that more or less lost PBS in the transition, I definitely felt the pain, there was no massive spike in cable and satellite adoption associated with the transition either.

- Trip

 

[comfortably_numb]

The ATSC standard was the one preferred by the broadcast industry

That about sums it up right there. Why is the FCC beholden to broadcasters? Why aren't they required to do what is in the best interest of the citizens?

That being said, I thank you for the honest and well thought-out response and I respect and appreciate your work.

 

[Trip]

That about sums it up right there. Why is the FCC beholden to broadcasters? Why aren't they required to do what is in the best interest of the citizens?

One could argue that if power bills were substantially higher, TV stations might have reduced power or gone off the air. (Unlike the repack, recall there was no government funding for the digital transition, so that meant they'd need a bigger transmitter, as well.) Would that have benefited viewers?

I could go further than that, but I'd be getting into "Pit" territory, and I'm not going there!

That being said, I thank you for the honest and well thought-out response and I respect and appreciate your work.

Thank you. I appreciate your well-thought out replies as well.

- Trip

 

[harshness]

Here's the deal in my mind:

As long as the streaming organizations continue to utilize unicast, there will be a need for mass quantities of broadband bandwidth. Absent any obvious large scale efforts to remedy that situation, the broadband providers need a substantial amount of elbow room. At this point, C-band seems like one of the likely targets as OTA has already been raided and won't be ready for another hit until NEXTGEN TV becomes the mandate in North America (do I hear a 2027 or later?).

I liken this to the addition of area codes and mandatory ten digit dialing years ago. How could we possibly need all that many phone numbers? Little did we know that, on average, nearly every adult and many of their offspring would have their own phone number.

 

[dweber]

Most of the problem is due to stations broadcasting at reduced power on temporary antennas. Also most stations are using UHF frequencies with only a few using VHF frequencies.
The time line that the FCC mandated for the OTA repack was totally unrealistic. There is currently a huge backlog of stations that are currently broadcasting at low power with temporary transmitters. For example Dayton channels ABC 22 and FOX 45 changed their frequency during the second week of October. They have been broadcasting at very low power using a temporary antenna. As a result most of their OTA customers could not receive the signals. On December 23rd they finally installed the new antenna but were still broadcasting at low power. On January 26 they switched to an auxiliary transmitter hooked to the new antenna. This vastly improved their reception and I was now able to receive both channels. Still many people are having reception problems. The permanent transmitter which will allow them to broadcast at full power is projected to be installed in late February. They are waiting for the transmitter team to finish the installation. Unfortunately there is a huge backlog which is affecting many stations. The last estimate I heard was that 35-40% of current stations are broadcasting at reduced power using temporary antennas due to the repack.
Here is their latest update.

Auxiliary transmitter switch planned for Sunday night

We are pleased to announce that the project overnight to connect the new antennas to the auxiliary transmitter was successful. The added height of the new antennas should provide enhanced signal delivery and picture quality to many. You will have to rescan your over-the-air channels (and may...

dayton247now.com

Sent from my iPhone using SatelliteGuys

 

[Juan]

Except you are wrong...with 10gig pipes becoming commonplace to businesses and 1 gig to be the defacto standard to homes in about 5 years...bandwidth wont be the issue that it is today....

Here's the deal in my mind:

As long as the streaming organizations continue to utilize unicast, there will be a need for mass quantities of broadband bandwidth. Absent any obvious large scale efforts to remedy that situation, the broadband providers need a substantial amount of elbow room. At this point, C-band seems like one of the likely targets as OTA has already been raided and won't be ready for another hit until NEXTGEN TV becomes the mandate in North America (do I hear a 2027 or later?).

I liken this to the addition of area codes and mandatory ten digit dialing years ago. How could we possibly need all that many phone numbers? Little did we know that, on average, nearly every adult and many of their offspring would have their own phone number.

Sent from my SM-G950U using the SatelliteGuys app!

 

[NYDutch]

Most of the problem is due to stations broadcasting at reduced power on temporary antennas. Also most stations are using UHF frequencies with only a few using VHF frequencies.

Not to nit-pick, but I wouldn't call the post repack ~25% of all active stations that are or will be broadcasting on the low and high VHF frequencies "a few"...

 

[harshness]

Except you are wrong...with 10gig pipes becoming commonplace to businesses and 1 gig to be the defacto standard to homes in about 5 years...bandwidth wont be the issue that it is today....

Based on another thread where a couple of juggernaut ISPs (Comcast and AT&T) are significantly reducing their investment in upgrades after the beatdown of Net Neutrality, I wonder if a world such as you promise is particularly likely.

What theoretically can be done or that someone told the FCC what they wanted to hear should not be confused with what will ultimately be done.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

My first question is why this is in the FTA forum and not the OTA forum, but this is where Scott posted it, so I will leave it be.

Because from what I can tell he is ultimatly trying to push his upcoming FTA receiver which will have a ATSC 3.0 tuner built in to it.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Except you are wrong...with 10gig pipes becoming commonplace to businesses and 1 gig to be the defacto standard to homes in about 5 years...bandwidth wont be the issue that it is today....

Sent from my SM-G950U using the SatelliteGuys app!

I seem to remember a buy named Bill Gates saying 640k of memory was more than any computer would ever need. Lol.

Same can be said about Bandwidth.

 

[comfortably_numb]

Because from what I can tell he is ultimatly trying to push his upcoming FTA receiver which will have a ATSC 3.0 tuner built in to it.

Ah! A new toy

 

[KE4EST]

Because from what I can tell he is ultimatly trying to push his upcoming FTA receiver which will have a ATSC 3.0 tuner built in to it.

Ding! Ding! Ding!

 

[Juan]

Not sure what is happening where you live but net neutrality is dead...so those companies are going full throttle with 1 gig

Based on another thread where a couple of juggernaut ISPs (Comcast and AT&T) are significantly reducing their investment in upgrades after the beatdown of Net Neutrality, I wonder if a world such as you promise is particularly likely.

What theoretically can be done or that someone told the FCC what they wanted to hear should not be confused with what will ultimately be done.

Sent from my SM-G950U using the SatelliteGuys app!

 

[Juan]

Comcast offering 1 gigabit per second service to its entire territory

If you're feeling the need for speed.

www.cnet.com

Sent from my SM-G950U using the SatelliteGuys app!

 

[harshness]

Comcast offering 1 gigabit per second service to its entire territory

If you're feeling the need for speed.

www.cnet.com

I looked into 1GB and 2GB service and they both have some fine print about a possible $500 upgrade fee to get those speeds. I also read something about the actual speed being limited to 974Mbps (or some such) if an Ethernet connection is used.

Of course Comcast is only shy about 200 million households shy of covering the US.

Don't let hype ramrod your expectations.