Technology360

The Economic Case for Dedicated Unlicensed Spectrum Below 3 GHz

Missed these when they were published July 1, but the New America Foundation has published two papers of the above title by William Lehr. Issue Brief pdf. Working Paper pdf --Dennis

Microsoft Tests Broadband TV

Microsoft has turned to a Swiss telecommunication operator for the first commercial trial of its system that delivers television signals to consumers over a broadband telecommunications network, it announced this week. ¶ Beginning in September, Swisscom's Internet service provider subsidiary Bluewin will deliver 25 TV channels to set top boxes in 600 homes. During the four-month trial, testers will have access to five pay-TV channels and a video-on-demand service through the set top boxes, which also function as a digital video recorder with a live pause function, Microsoft says. ... PCWorld.com link

Viewers Take Control of the TV

According to eMarketer's just released report, US Digital TV: On-Demand and High Definition, the number of US households receiving digital TV services will reach 70.3 million in 2007, up from 44.2 million at the end of 2003. This equates to a rise in digital TV penetration from 40.2% of households in 2003 to 60.4% in 2007. ... eMarketer link

Cognitive Radio: Next Big Thing?

... Cognitive Radio can sense whether a band is being used. If the band is unoccupied it uses it. CR can switch to another band when the primary user recommences transmissions. It can also stay on the channel, altering its power and modulation to avoid interference. ... Daily Wireless link

Cognitive radio hailed as "next big thing" in wireless. Last December, the FCC opened wide what many believe will be the next frontier in wireless communications. In a notice of proposed rule making (NPRM), it asked how cognitive radio could best be implemented. That action brought to the fore founding research by Joseph Mitola, who coined the term cognitive radio (CR), and sparked a flurry of activity among industry and academic wireless systems designers and researchers. ... EETimes link.

A Radio Challenge to Arbitron

A three-year-old company [Navigauge] plans to describe a new service today that will measure radio audiences in cars, combining global positioning technology and continuous tracking of the radio dial to challenge Arbitron, the dominant radio ratings provider. ... The New York Times link

Broadband Over Power Lines Gains Steam

... While 2004 didn't turn into quite the rush to embrace BPL services that industry observers predicted last year, there continues to be momentum around the technology. Providers say BPL throughput can range from 300 kilobits per second to 2 mbps, about the same as cable and DSL, but that they can provide the service at a less-expensive rate. ... PCWorld.com link

The Real Future of Mobile Video

Kevin Werbach: "Video will be a significant driver for next-generation mobile networks. Just not in the ways most operators and analysts are expecting. ...¶... As on the wired Internet, predictions about video are following the wrong paradigm. Video-enabled wireless handheld devices are neither televisions that fit in your hand nor personal videophones, any more than a television is just radio with pictures. Yet as the announcements above suggest, operators are delivering mobile video services that mimic older media, especially broadcast television. ..." TheFeature link

DSL Outgrows Cable by 8 Percent

"Mainstream consumers of broadband are more price-sensitive, lower-income and less technology-optimistic than early adopters of broadband were," Forrester analyst Jed Kolko said in a statement. "Because the importance of price will only become more pronounced over the next several years," he noted. "DSL is poised to grab more consumers with price points of $30 per month versus cable's $40 to $50 per month." ¶ For the first time ever, the major providers of DSL broadband services garnered more new subscribers in a calendar quarter than their cable television competitors. ... Technology News link

HDTV, DVD, Hard Drives and the future

Mark Cuban: "I love looking for ways to screw up conventional wisdom. Right now in the entertainment world, the conventional wisdom is that both sides on the HD DVD vs Blue Ray DVD will battle it out and a standard for HD on DVD will emerge. No one is trying to rush to a compromise because the big media companies want to squeeze as much money as they possibly can out the current DVD business cycle. ¶ Good. The longer it takes, the less chance any format of DVD has of having a place in the future of home entertainment. Don’t look now, but the price and size of hard drives have fallen like a rock, while capacities have soared, with no slowdown in site. ¶ Which leads to the question — What is the best way to distribute content? ..." Blog Maverick link

Advertisers Go Digital to Track Ads

Top marketers are going digital to track the delivery of commercials into U.S. homes with a system some advocates say will revolutionize advertising the way product codes changed the selling of sliced bread. ¶ One day, it could even enable advertisers to target individual households. ¶ The top four U.S. broadcast networks -- CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox -- have signed on to comply with a new 12-character code for tracking all advertising, a system heralded as a new standard for monitoring the $263 billion U.S. ad industry, the two advertising trade groups behind the system said. ¶ Called Ad-ID, the technical switch is being compared to the introduction of the universal product code, or UPC -- the tiny bar codes that 30 years ago changed the way supermarket chains tracked and delivered inventory across the country. ... Reuters.com link