General – Page 61 – Engineering Radio

Net Non-Neutrality

Internet Neutrality has become a big topic among some groups. The fear is that some ISPs will filter internet users’ content, arbitrarily excluding whatever items they want without explanation or disclosure. The temptation is too great for some ISPs (Verizon, Comcast, ATT, et. al.) not to block certain IP addresses, say for example, that of a competitor.

This amounts to corporate censorship. If I have a Verizon account and I want to research other telephone companies, will I get accurate results? What about some potential regulation change that the company didn’t want to have Congress pass? How about adverse rulings about Verizon from the state public service commission?

In light of the NBC/Universal – Comcast deal announced last week, those concerns appear to carry even more weight. If the internet is going to replace radio, TV, and newspapers as some suggest, access must be unfettered. Any member of the public should be able to search through any ISP’s infrastructure and find all relevant data.

There have been FCC hearings on the matter, there is a NPRM, a web site has been set up, and there is a wikipedia entry. Recently, senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) have come out against the idea of Net Neutrality, although I cannot imagine why.

I decided to do a little experiment myself. At my official job, we have to ISPs, each on a separate T-1 line. The first ISP is a local company, Best Web. The other ISP is Verizon. On the Best Web circuit, I did a Google search for some innocuous term, with safe search turned off. I then used the same search terms on the Verizon circuit. I was surprised to see different results for each search. I did specific searches for items based on a geographical location, e.g. “widgets, Washington DC.” In each case, the Verizon search results were missing some of the pages that the Best Web search results had. This is going through Google. I have Verizon at home also and noted the same differences there.

By this relatively brief research, it would seem that Verizon is filtering out some pages they don’t like. It is difficult to say why, and if I didn’t go through the trouble of changing ISPs and repeating the search, I would have never known about it. Clearly, most people don’t understand:

This is already happening!

This is one of the key problems with the “internet” future. Access to data can be very easily controlled by programming firewalls and gateways at the IPS’s data center. Users searching for items will never know what they are missing. Having a diverse broadcasting industry has fostered freedom of the press and advanced our democracy. Loosing that will put us on a slippery road to Corporatocracy if we are not already there.

S. 592: On your mark, get set…

Go!

The Senate seems to have it in its mind to release the LPFM genie from the bottle:

The Senate Commerce Committee unanimously approved a bill (Local Community Radio Act (S. 592)) today that would loosen regulations limiting low-power FM stations. It would abolish the third-adjacent minimum distance separation requirement except for stations that provide a radio reading service, as well as give FM translators and LPFMs equal access to spectrum. The House Commerce Committee has also cleared the bill.

The Local Community Radio Act (S. 592) official bill summary is:

3/12/2009–Introduced.Local Community Radio Act of 2009 – Repeals provisions in the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State, the Judiciary, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2001 that required the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to:
(1) modify rules authorizing the operation of low-power FM radio stations to prescribe minimum distance separations for third-adjacent channels;
(2) prohibit applicants who have engaged in the unlicensed operation of any station from obtaining a low-power FM license; and
(3) conduct a program to test whether low-power FM radio stations will result in harmful interference to existing FM radio stations if minimum distance separations for third-adjacent channels are not required. Requires the FCC to modify its rules to eliminate third-adjacent minimum distance separation requirements between specified stations. Requires the FCC to retain rules that provide third-adjacent channel protection for full-power noncommercial FM stations that broadcast radio reading services via a subcarrier frequency from potential low-power FM station interference. Requires the FCC, when licensing FM translator stations, to ensure that:
(1) licenses are available to both FM translator stations and low-power FM stations; and
(2) such decisions are made based on the needs of the local community.

I would add to that list; Must be on the air at least 50% of the time and no more than 50% of that time is automated. Why not? If this is supposed to spur local (community radio) what would be the point of a whole bunch of low-power automated stations? Just more clutter in the FM band.

Radio is dead/Radio is not dead

I have been reading with interest the whole debate about radio being dead or dying vs. radio being a vibrant thriving business.

Radio is not dead by any measure, however, it is declining for a number of obvious reasons. There are more competing entertainment and information options, that is true. Ipods, netcasters, and satellite radio have taken some of radio’s listeners away. However, the main culprit in radio’s decline is the investment bankers that are squeezing every drop of blood nickel out of the industry before moving on to their next victim investment opportunity.

The net result of this has made much, not all, of radio predictable and boring. No longer is radio the source for new music, news, information, and entertainment as it used to be. I don’t think that anyone will argue that point. The money men have fired most of the creative and talented individuals who used to bring in the listeners and replaced them with computers. They have also cut news staff, support staff, and anything else that lives and breaths except salespeople. More salespeople are always required.

HD Radio^TM radio is a joke at best. Setting aside all of the technical problems with coverage and building penetration, the programming sucks too. The same purveyors of crap on the main analog channels are now branching out on the HD2 and HD3 channels. I can’t believe that the secondary channels will somehow be better than the main analog channels, or even marginally good enough to buy an HD Radio radio. Some groups are putting their AM programming on an FM HD2 channel, which is great if one cares to hear drug-addled corpulent talk show hosts wheezing into the microphone in full fidelity. At least on the AM analog broadcasts, everything above 4.5 KHz is cut off, wheezing included.

The good news is, there are still some radio stations that are programmed well. Radio sets are almost universal, every car has one, every house has at least one or two, and most offices, stores, etc. Radio reception is still free. Radio is still popular among many people. Radio owners could very easily become involved with their communities of license, make better programming decisions, hire staff, and add valuable informative local programs again. This decline would soon be forgotten.

The bad news is that is unlikely to happen. Less than a snowball’s chance in hell unless someone wakes up and smells the coffee.

I am half an optimist.

How stupid do you have to be?

I read through the news coverage of the vandalism at the KRKO transmitter site. Apparently, there is some group of idiots people running around insisting that radio towers are bad for the environment and people’s health. These are the same ones who have torched SUVs and burned high-end housing developments down. Naturally, no pollution is released into the environment during these acts, or else they would be hypocrites.

They make these claims with no merit or scientific basis, instead relying on base fears to make people go crazy, either temporarily or permanently like. It is actually a pretty good motivator as both political parties and all sorts of fringe truthier, birthier, and others have discovered. If enough people insist that it is true, then it must be so.

Unfortunately, there is always some idiot around who thinks it is his or her duty to take action, to protect the rest of us from some terrible fate.

In the meantime, some security cameras at the transmitter site might be a good investment. Chances are, these Earth Liberators that sneak around with bolt cutters and hack saws will likely think twice if there is any chance of themselves going to jail.

By the way, those KRKO towers looked like self-supporters which would have been very difficult to get down. Did they rent that excavator, or was some construction equipment left unattended?