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BPS is a GPS alternative that nobody's heard of

jeffgeerling.com

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Re: BPS is a GPS alternative that nobody's heard of

#101

Post by ksec »

extra88 wrote: post #99
ksec wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is US ATSC 3.0 so bad? It is nearly a decade since it was South Korea have it deployed and operational. The standard itself is no longer "next gen". Brazil's TV 3.0, also uses ATSC 3.0 is so much better in every aspect. Even if someone mandate it as requirement for TV sold next year all the tech inside are at least 10 years old ( HEVC ? ) . Not to mention the roll out time. Do Americans only watch Cables and Netf…

Only "18% of U.S. TV households had at least one TV set enabled to receive free, broadcast programming." https://www.nielsen.com/insights/2024/beyond-big-data-the-au...

Wow. Thanks. So when an Americans say they are watching TV, I assume that mostly meant watching Netflix or Cables?

Re: BPS is a GPS alternative that nobody's heard of

#102

Post by geerlingguy »

throwing_away wrote: post #64
1970-01-01 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same feeling here. ATSC 3.0 with DRM and persistent Internet requirements tells me this is going to be the downfall of OTA television. I can see ATSC 4.0 being a discounted ISP subscription paired with some OTA location checks via BPS.

There is 1 provider for ATSC3 DRM (which is already rolling out in major markets): Google Widevine. There is 1 operating system for ATSC3 DRM: Android. There are several SoCs that can be used for "Level 1 Widevine". When a SoC is compromised and the key is leaked from the TEE, all models of that device with the key are now untrusted for Level 1. I think people should just be aware of the state of play.

At NAB someone asked one of the ATSC folks what would happen if the key is compromised and someone didn't connect a receiver to the Internet. The answer was "the receivers have many built in public keys. They should last the lifetime of the device."

Concerning because they could have a situation like with some 4K blu ray discs, your hardware becomes obsolete because DRM requires that cat and mouse game...

Re: BPS is a GPS alternative that nobody's heard of

#103

Post by geerlingguy »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #60
Alive-in-2025 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So atsc 3 won't work unless you have some continuous "i'm user xyz watching this channel at time x.y.z" going back to the broadcaster? Why would anyone use atsc 3? It's not free over the air, you can't spoof it?

It's not like anyone's gonna ask them. Networks will just label this as ${network name}'s HYPER NEXT GEN 10G TV EXPERIENCE (HNG TV), market the shit out of it, and offer free ESPN on it, tack on some Paramount HBO Supermax Plus for $0.99/year and throw in a half-decent Smart TV as a sign-on bonus, and adoption will skyrocket. TV networks in the US are a living proof that, with enough marketing spend and a pinch of co…

It's being marketed as "NEXTGEN TV" so not far off.

Re: BPS is a GPS alternative that nobody's heard of

#104

Post by p_ing »

ksec wrote: post #101
extra88 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only "18% of U.S. TV households had at least one TV set enabled to receive free, broadcast programming." https://www.nielsen.com/insights/2024/beyond-big-data-the-au...

Wow. Thanks. So when an Americans say they are watching TV, I assume that mostly meant watching Netflix or Cables?

Cable is losing subscribers, too.

https://evoca.tv/cord-cutting-statistics/

Re: BPS is a GPS alternative that nobody's heard of

#105

Post by geerlingguy »

rwg wrote: post #44

I want to like this — I think having ground-based alternatives to GPS and other space-based PNT systems is a very good thing! But after reading the paper at https://www.nab.org/bps/Broadcast_Positioning_System_Using_A... and other BPS information on the NAB's website, I think the NAB is being wildly optimistic about BPS: • ATSC 3.0's physical layer can already transmit GPS time in a way that receivers could get it ba…

> What's the business case for broadcasters?

My uneducated guess is government funding, plus becoming part of a new "essential backbone" infrastructure, thus guaranteeing incentives to stay operational for a longer period of time.

Re: BPS is a GPS alternative that nobody's heard of

#106

Post by ksec »

p_ing wrote: post #104
ksec wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. Thanks. So when an Americans say they are watching TV, I assume that mostly meant watching Netflix or Cables?

Cable is losing subscribers, too. https://evoca.tv/cord-cutting-statistics/

Thank You. I guess I will submit this as an operate entry. Mind blowing figures.

Re: BPS is a GPS alternative that nobody's heard of

#107

Post by fanf2 »

zinekeller wrote: post #80
cameldrv wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dead reckoning is also inaccurate due to unknown winds. Even if you take off with the best available forecast, it’s often wrong by 5mph+. After three hours your position is off by 15 miles. That’s not remotely good enough for most aviation purposes.

As t0mas88 said, you don't rely on the measured speed of the aircraft/ship, you rely on gyroscopes (which are much more resistant to external factors), and both clocks and gyroscopes have improved signifcantly (clocks are now better than cesium atoms - read about atomic clocks) and so are gyroscopes (again, optical gyroscopes that are miles better than mechanical ones).

Portable clocks are not better than static caesium clocks, and optical clocks which are better than caesium clocks are not portable.

Re: BPS is a GPS alternative that nobody's heard of

#108

Post by p_ing »

publicola1990 wrote: post #10

While this is is interesting, the "nobody's heard of" phrase is rather condescending and such phrases leave a bad taste in the mind.

It's a curiosity gap headline; it's a lazy form of headline that insults the intelligence of the audience. It also extends into clickbait.

Poor form. Do better.

Re: BPS is a GPS alternative that nobody's heard of

#109

Post by DoubleGlazing »

kmeisthax wrote: post #38
Lammy wrote: post #15

I hope it will still be possible to receive a BPS timing signal privately and anonymously with ATSC 3 like one can with GPS. ATSC 3 has the Dedicated Return Channel because marketers “““need””” to spy on every-fucking-thing we do: https://www.atsc.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/A323-2024-04... “Conventional linear TV services alone (albeit ultra-high-definition) may not be sufficient to sustain the terrestrial broadc…

Wait, to be clear, this 'dedicated return channel' is just for TVs to broadcast back to the station that they're watching the adverts? I thought ATSC 3.0 was going to rely on IP backhaul for that. Actually broadcasting back seems... impractical at best. I mean, let's keep in mind, even ATSC 1.0 had really awful reception issues; compared to analog NTSC where there was enough redundancy that you could just tune into a…

Back in the late 90s when Ireland was starting to think about digital terrestrial TV a system called DVB-RCT was considered. Basically your receiver could also transmit back to the television transmitter. The system could handle thousands of concurrent connections, albeit each one had very low bandwidth - around 1Kbp/s in peak time.That was considered good enough for very basic interactivity and for authorising PPV purchases etc.In quieter hours or in areas were there were fewer receivers that bandwidth would be much higher, but in reality that would be rare.

In the end the company that the governement selected to start the rollout of DTT went bust and I don't think the system was used anywhere else. The developer of the technology abandoned it in 2006 as other connection methods (broadband/mobile data) were preferred.

Re: BPS is a GPS alternative that nobody's heard of

#110

Post by lxgr »

bob1029 wrote: post #89
typewithrhythm wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't really beat a jammer, sure you can compete for power output, but there is no real stopping it. Aircraft and military positioning concepts are evolving towards more map and dead reckoning, lessening the benefit of GPS jamming.

You can defeat a jammer if you are willing to use more spectrum than your opponent and/or can sacrifice information rate.

True, but both very hard to do in a system that's deployed to space and (heavily regulated) avionics part of aircraft that get upgraded very infrequently, to say nothing of the billions of other civilian receivers.
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