[BC] HD Radio -- Folks we have to get it right!

[Rich Wood]

------ At 08:21 AM 10/17/2005, Cornelius Gould wrote: -------

>We then become more irrelevant than we are now, and die as an industry.

Since we still dominate, I think the news of our death is greatly 
exaggerated. Apologies to Mark Twain. We aren't dead and aren't 
likely to go for quite a while. There's no medium that beats us as an 
industry. I believe it's still true that more people listen to radio 
in a day than watch TV.

>Broadcasters harp on Satellite Radio as the reason to move forward 
>with this, but I don't see it that way.  It is all the other 
>delivery methods being developed that will allow hundreds of stereo 
>digital audio channels (at higher bitrates than broadcast and 
>Satellite radio) to be received both in portable and mobile systems 
>that will be the biggest threat.

<snip>

>Where do we stand in this new world communications order?
>
>Check out what Qualcomm and others are up to to get my point here. 
>They ain't talking about no wimpy WI-Max, or 802.x hotspots.  They 
>are talking about covering entire markets with broadband digital 
>entertainment / information systems to be received on computers, 
>cell phones, and anything else that has a little computer in it, and 
>can pick up RF.  All this coming to a neighborhood transmitter site 
>near us in the next year or so!

OK. Verizon has a sort of national service in some major markets. I 
think it's about 60 markets. If we were to dump all our bandwidth on 
their system, could it handle it without compressing it down to 
nothing? I'm not concerned about watching a 3 minute condensed 
version of War and Peace. Verizon is advertising TV on your cell 
phone. It turns out not to be live. It's more like a video podcast. 
Of course, my market is too small to have service. If I go farther 
north all cell service disappears. When do you suppose those Northern 
New England towns will get service? They have radio and TV. Just not 
enough people to deserve cell service. They've even got DTV. No DSL. 
Too far from the CO. In some cases no cable. Too few people to 
warrant running lines up there.

Friends who have DirecTV are complaining that the quality is 
deteriorating as they add all those local channels.

What kind of pipe can you imagine that will be able to handle the 
same capacity we're using now and add all these new services. How 
often do you surf the web on your cell phone? I use Cingular because 
the's no Verizon service here. Verizon let me use digital services as 
minutes. Cingular charges me by the Kb. I can buy the DVD for less 
than I can watch the same movie on my cell or Tungsten T5.

Henny Penny is alive and thirving. The sky is now so low even I can't 
stand up without my head in the clouds. Everyone who disagrees with 
these doomsayers are accused of having their heads in the sand. Don't 
forget, we were supposed to have colonized Jupiter by 1974, according 
to predictions in Popular Science. My realtor can't even find a 
fixer-upper up there.

Rich


Rich Wood
Rich Wood Multimedia
Phone: 413-303-9084
FAX: 413-480-0010