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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

#131

Post by lotsofpulp »

aydyn wrote: post #124
lotsofpulp wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> TV networks in the US are a living proof that, with enough marketing spend and a pinch of confusion in the offer structure, you can sell people on anything. Half the time you can just offer sportsball access and people will switch. The cratering market values say otherwise. Few people under 40 even care about “TV”, and live sports distribution contracts (and the associated gambling) are the only thing holding it up…

False, the majority of under 40 are still watching "TV" but just through intertube streaming. netflix, apple TV, amazon, and so on, all except apple have ads too.

The post I responded to mentioned TV networks, not TV. In a thread discussing over the air TV, I took that to mean linear programming sold by CBS (soon to be Skydance), NBC (Comcast), ABC (Disney), and Fox (also Disney, I think), and the CW (Nexstar).

The crux of the matter being that even if OTA channels didn’t track people’s location, it wouldn’t matter since OTA itself going the way of the dodo.

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

#132

Post by donatj »

ksec wrote: post #96
geerlingguy wrote: post #3

Note that this blog post (and the associated video) were a quick off-the-cuff thing while I was on the NAB show floor—I have been talking to a few of those involved in the testing at NIST, Sinclair, and Avateq (among others), and will hopefully have a lot more in a follow-up. Right now it's in the experimental stage, with only 6 towers total deployed (only 5 were operational during NAB, and only one in Nevada... so t…

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…

Broadcast TV after the digital rollout was so bad many people just stopped watching TV. Picking it up is such a hassle it's simply not worth the effort for some ad laden TV.

At the time of the switchover in the early 2000s I lived about 40 miles from a major metropolitan area, Minneapolis, which is pretty close in US terms. We spent hundreds of dollars on different antennas (indoor and outdoor) and signal boosters and what not and it was simply never reliability.

In 2008 I moved to my current location, three miles outside of downtown Minneapolis. Again I tried a number of antennas and still found operation to be anything but reliable. I gave up and began just watching Netflix.

The people who live close enough to the broadcasts to pick it up have easy access to cable TV. The people who live in the countryside who used to depend on it can't pick it up. There's just no place for the TV system we were given.

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

#133

Post by louthy »

timthorn wrote: post #82
arghwhat wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is zero relation there. OP is falling about the spec incorporating usage monitoring. 5G was designed with a very public and explicit goal for IoT of allowing many more devices to connect than 4G could, and more conveniently. Nothing unexpected or user-harming, and nothing new as 4G was already used for IoT.

When EE launched 5G in the UK, they took out a full page ad with a massive headline saying simply "A real crowd pleaser" One of the best adverts for a long time - if you knew about the technical advantages of 5G, it had a real double meaning. If you knew 90s British dance music, it had a further humourous double meaning promoting the telco (an oblique reference to The Shamen's Ebenezer Goode)

> an oblique reference to The Shamen's Ebenezer Goode

That didn’t even cross my mind and Rich West (Mr. C) is a friend of mine and I know the song well. I, of course, get the reference now it has been pointed out, but you’re right that it’s pretty damn oblique!

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

#134

Post by mcculley »

brookst wrote: post #98
rocqua wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you tell it the location of multiple towers it receives signals from, then it can compute the unique solution x, y, z, t

But the comment several levels up said they were demoing time with a single tower.

You can get time with a single tower, but not location.

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

#135

Post by mindslight »

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…

I would think that the expectation is for the common option to be IP backhaul based on embedded LTE/5G modems. Having a separate communication scheme is probably more of a hedge for super rural areas that don't have LTE/5G or other IP coverage, especially as that is where broadcast TV will have more staying power.

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

#136

Post by mmooss »

donatj wrote: post #132
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…

Broadcast TV after the digital rollout was so bad many people just stopped watching TV. Picking it up is such a hassle it's simply not worth the effort for some ad laden TV. At the time of the switchover in the early 2000s I lived about 40 miles from a major metropolitan area, Minneapolis, which is pretty close in US terms. We spent hundreds of dollars on different antennas (indoor and outdoor) and signal boosters an…

> Broadcast TV after the digital rollout was so bad many people just stopped watching TV.

That is the first time I've heard that. Everything I've heard has been positive - people amazed that others aren't doing it. Are there any numbers on user satisfaction?

I used it myself once or twice and it worked simply with antennas that were relatively cheap (> The people who live close enough to the broadcasts to pick it up have easy access to cable TV.

Cable is expensive for many people and broadcast is free, of course. (Also, Broadcast is more private, for now.)

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

#137

Post by lxgr »

aydyn wrote: post #124
lotsofpulp wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> TV networks in the US are a living proof that, with enough marketing spend and a pinch of confusion in the offer structure, you can sell people on anything. Half the time you can just offer sportsball access and people will switch. The cratering market values say otherwise. Few people under 40 even care about “TV”, and live sports distribution contracts (and the associated gambling) are the only thing holding it up…

False, the majority of under 40 are still watching "TV" but just through intertube streaming. netflix, apple TV, amazon, and so on, all except apple have ads too.

That's not really "TV", though (at least unless you'd also consider people buying a film or show on VHS or DVD "television").

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

#139

Post by karaterobot »

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…

> Recent studies have shown that interactivity between media customers and service providers and between users themselves will be one of the most important features in the next-generation media service. In this document, this unique opportunity is addressed by defining a Dedicated Return Channel (DRC) system for the next-generation broadcasting system.

Wow, that's one of the best uses of corporate-speak euphemism I've seen. Everybody who reads it knows what it really means, but if you just don't say it, it's fine. Recent studies indeed!

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