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March 14, 2005
I couldn't finish Jan Wenner's obituary of Hunter Thompson (external link), it became too upsetting for me. Thompson was a madman but he showed how exciting writing could be. Even when you weren't reading Hunter, you wish you were. Tom Wolfe's "The Right Stuff" was a very good book but Thompson could have made it great.
The early space capsules were smaller than the old Volkswagen Beetles. The crew sat on their backs atop a twenty story rocket, filled with enough fuel to equal a whole fleet of B-52's packed with bombs. Can you imagine being launched into space on top of a two hundred foot tall gas can? I can't think of an experience more intense or frightening yet Wolfe described it each time in such dry terms. Hunter wouldn't.
I explain telecom history and how technology works. My best writing is point to point, a, b, c, one step at a time. All quite mechanical, one sentence leading to another, building a description like constructing a house, one stick of lumber and then another. No fooling around. Hunter fooled around.
He might not have told you how a Harley was built, but he could tell you how it acted, how it sounded, how it felt. You'd have not a literal understanding of the bike, but an intuitive sense of what it was like. When things are too complicated to explain, or when they shouldn't be for emotional reasons, a masterful command of the intuitive is a rare, prized gift. But now I am far from telecom, well, further than I want, and I am tired of writing. Until Tuesday.
March 11, 2005
The first cellular radio telephone system
On January, 1969 the Bell System made commercial cellular radio operational. Aboard a train. Using payphones. Motorola built the radio gear which Western Electric designed and AT&T installed.
Retired AT&T employee John Winward was a lead person on the Metroliner installation, known by Bell as the "High Speed Train Project." He recounts for privateline.com many good details about the train and about early cellular development. Please click here to read his story. (internal link.) This is a rough draft, we may add more later.
March 10, 2005
The Qualcomm Equation (Update)
Qualcomm has become the most influential wireless company in the world. Dave Mock (internal link) explains their history well in his new book, although I would have liked more about their chief engineers, like Phil Karn, who goes unmentioned. But the book is an excellent read with good reporting on the history of CDMA development in cellular radio. TDMA history is fairly easy to obtain, but spread spectrum history within cellular is little reported in hardcopy. Click here to go to Dave's page at privateline to read a chapter. (internal link)
March 7, 2005
Musings
The greatest factor limiting cellular radio development was not technology but spectrum, that great radio real estate space in the sky. Until the FCC assigned enough frequencies to handle large amounts of users there wasn't commercial interest. Who'd build a new, expensive system without enough customers to pay for it? Only when the FCC seemed willing to free up spectrum did the Bell System and Motorola put money and resources into fully investigating cellular. Can anyone think of another constructive invention that was limited chiefly by government regulation, not by the technology itself?
One more thought, since I am rambling. A one lane toll road cannot make as much money as a twenty-four lane toll road if there is constant demand for all those lanes. Compare that to the problem of limited spectrum or number of frequencies before the FCC allotted large blocks to cellular radio. One might argue that technology was still the limiting factor. If one could get 24 voice channels operating on a single frequency then limited spectrum wouldn't be the biggest problem. But technology has to be practical. Could you have a 24 lane toll road in the same space as a single lane? Perhaps. If you stacked each road on top of the other. But such a project would be cost prohibitive and impractical to construct. Again, we have to move away from technology and look at the limited resource that is spectrum.
March 4, 2005
Call for help from former NTT, Oki Electric, and ITT cellular people
I'm writing a mobile telephone history article for an international telephone publication. Please contact me if you worked in cellular for any of the above companies during the 60's, 70's, or 80's. I'd appreciate an e-mail interview and I'd be sure to credit you in the article. If you have experience in the pre-cellular era for those firms, well, I would especially like to hear from you. Thanks in advance.
March 1, 2005
Sorry to be out of touch here; I've been gardening and prospecting this week. I'm still answering my e-mails, though, so don't hesitate to contact me if you have a question (internal link to e-mail link). Thanks, Tom
February 25, 2005
The IEC has just published their $300 Annual Review of Communications. The summary of this overpriced work points to more wireless industry myopia: "As customer behaviour changes and technology evolves, companies must focus less on the network and more on the services that their customers demand." No. Wrong. As more services are provided and more money demanded the network must become more robust and reliable. It's easy to provide services, much more difficult to fix dead spots, extend coverage, or keep calls from getting dropped. Infrastructure may not be exciting but it is essential.
February 21, 2005
Hunter S. Thompson died yesterday in Aspen, Colorado of a self inflicted gunshot wound. He was 67. Hemingway, too, killed himself with a gun at age 61 in Ketchum, Idaho, and it is inevitable that people will compare the two men. That can wait. Thompson wrote this in November of 1971, when hippie power could no longer overcome the Vietnam War or the assasinations of the 1960s:
'And that, I think, was the handle - -that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting -- on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark -- the place where the wave finally broke and rolled back. "
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
February 20, 2005
The New York Post's online edition reports that illegal cell jamming equipment is now being sold throughout New York City. Blocking cell phone calls also means blocking emergency services such as 911. Expect this equipment to proliferate throughout the country, with new devices jamming other wireless networks such as WiFi hotspots. If not checked, our mobile networks might become as undependable as CB radio, frequencies lost to abuse. This had better stop soon, perhaps issuing large fines based on disrupting emergency communications would be one idea.
Angela Montefinise reports in "Shut The Cell Up" that these devices are being used for many reasons. Some of them sport. One user told Montefinise, "I use it on the bus all the time. I always zap the idiots who discuss what they want from the Chinese restaurant so that everyone can hear them. Why is that necessary?'"
"He added, 'I can't throw the phones out the window, so this is the next best thing.'"
"Online jammer seller Victor McCormack said he's made 'hundreds of sales' to New Yorkers."
"'The interest has gone insane in the last few years. I get all sorts of people buying them, from priests to police officers.'"
"Jammers come in a variety of shapes and sizes, from portable handhelds that look like cell phones to larger, fixed models as big as suitcases."
"Their sole goal is to zip inconsiderate lips. The smaller gadgets emit radio frequencies that block signals anywhere from a 50- to 200-foot radius. They range in price from $250 to $2,000."
The link to the story is here. Warning, this link may only last a few months:
http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/40168.htm
February 17, 2005
New Telephony Magazine
Communications is going to IP networks (internal link), mostly, eventually, and this on-line magazine covers that revolution. The format New Telephony uses is very different, I think it comes closest to the look and feel of a real magazine than anything else I've seen. You'll need an up-to-date browser and a broadband connection but with those two caveats, give it a try. Click here to go there (external link)
http://www.newtelephony.com/
February 16, 2005
Old books but good ones
Interested in 1970s telephony? Who isn't? Hayden book author David Talley penned three good titles back then: Basic Carrier Telephony, Basic Telephone Switching Systems, and Basic Electronic Switching for Telephone Systems. I have the first two. You can probably find them all at http://www.abe.com (external link.
How many telephones are in the world? I have no idea. AT&T's Long Line Division was the only group who had a good estimate. Each year they published a thin book on world telephone statistics. It was called, with variants, The World's Telephones. I think the last was published in the mid-1980s. You can also find it at abe.com. Some interesting figures from the 1975 consensus: Japan increased its phone tally from 12,250,841 in 1965 to 41,904,960 in 1975. That was a 242% increase. The U.K. more than doubled their phone population in the same era. 9,960,00 in 1965 to 20,342,457 in 1975. Quicker computerized switching and automating operator duties made higher call volumes possible. I say that because I doubt Japan or England doubled or tripled the amount of their physical plant during that time, rather, it was the efficiencies of the computer age that caused the increase.
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