We also have a FAA regulatory issue for 800MHz.
You meant FCC...
http://www.fcc.gov/guides/wireless-devices-airplanes
As for Australia I am not aware of them doing anything different than the rest of the globe. I would be interested if that report of how good airborne cellular data performs is based on a couple of apocryphal statements. They type that will most likely follow this posting of mine with statements such as "my Verizon phone worked great on my last flight" or if it is based on a real study?
I say that because in the real world it is possible to get links that work while flying. I am just saying that whetever you get you get. No one except AirCell is designing systems in the US for airborne users.
Heh... yup. I do think one thing they may have on us is their "in the boonies" systems probably are more often than not 3G or greater tech (sorry, I know 3G is an awful term, but you'll see where I'm going here) that's newer than the often 2G old junk that's still in operation in our "boonies".
I'll add my totally unscientific comment... When I fly over the boonies here that have 3G service, the data works great. When I fly over areas covered by old 2G base stations, the phone goes into high power "Where the hell did my network go?!" mode and generally freaks out.
Phone calls in either location rarely work, if ever. At 1000' AGL in the boonies with 3G base stations, maybe. But likely to be dropped very quickly.
Like you said, not scientific data.
Is it true they do not require code anymore for classes above technician?
There is no Morse code requirement for any class of license in the US. Existing classes that can be issued are Technician, General and Extra. Each only requires a written test.
And we were one of the last countries to do it. Treaties many many years prior authorized it, and we held on to our code requirements like it was the end of the world. Was kinda comical, really. I'm the last of the low-code Extras which was a phase that didn't last long. 5 WPM. I can go faster, and sometimes operate CW, but other than a historical connection to my grandfather who was a railroad telegrapher, I have no particular attachment to the code. (And railroad code wasn't Morse anyway... it was a totally different animal.)
I just loved his stories about stringing up buzzers between old mobile home trailers at Union Pacific training in Utah, and wondering why the batteries always died... then he and his buddy in class together figured out their wives were using the buzzers with their own "code" throughout the day to communicate things like, "Come over for lunch" and running their batteries down. LOL!
He knew what a straight key was, and a bug, but never worked with iambic paddles. He played with mine and liked 'em but said it'd take a while to get used to them, if he needed to. He liked the concept of a keyer, but said it'd take some of the ability to read someone's "fist" away. I haven't found that to be true... put four different people down at a set of paddles, you can still tell who's sending... but I can see where it's even more obvious with a bug, and REALLY obvious with a straight key, once you've heard the person send for a while.
I have never asked whether it works as well in more populated areas as in the boonies; will do so.
I'm definitely curious on that.
BTW for a lot of system deployment testing most companies do their tests in Asia. Seoul and Hong Kong offer the environments that are the most difficult to deploy wireless systems. With mountains, dense high rises, subways, traffic tunnels, etc. You can test everything in the most difficult terrain and propagation conditions possible.
A friend (who works for FCC, actually), says "Passive intermod is the devil's snack food." I'll have to ask him for a witty phrase to describe multipath and fading in a concrete jungle like Hong Kong or Seoul. What a nightmare.
But hey, I'm only up to twelve dropped calls on AT&T this month so far. My numbers are down because I gave up even trying to use the thing at my new office. In March it was something like 65. All sitting at my desk.
Tried a micro-cell from a pilot friend who stopped using his and offered it up as a guinea pig.
- Microcell requires GPS coverage to determine if it's in a legal area of the world to transmit on AT&T's assigned frequencies.
- Building has metalized windows. GPS signals don't get through well at all, confirmed by other GPS devices.
- Microcell could never get a GPS lock.
- Network security guy who I like, but probably went a little overboard on this one... says the Microcell is a "rogue access point" and doesn't want it on his network. Interesting take. I took it home to experiment some more.
House has anywhere from "two bars" to "three bars" of signal unless you go outside. Read up on AT&T's site about the microcell, and saw that it will hand off calls to the outdoor network if you walk out of the house, but not hand calls back in. Okay, I can live with that... but...
- iPhone "likes" outdoor network better. It'll join the microcell if it's very near it, but if the outdoor network comes up to three bars, it's bailing. No matter what the microcell signal strength is.
- Decided to try to prove this. Put microcell 36" from back porch sliding glass door. Stand in the middle of the room, on microcell... walk to the door, phone dives for the outdoor network.
My suspicion: Phones are programmed to jump to the higher bands, since those are more advantageous to the carrier... more overlap possible due to reduced range at higher frequencies, etc. Microcell is probably on 800 MHz. Phone wants to avoid it like the plague, but can't if it's four or five bars... but as soon as it sees a nice on another band that's at least three bars, it jumps ship.
So how does this end up working in practice?
You walk out on the back porch. You're still only a couple of feet from the microcell, but the phone jumps to the outdoor network. Your wife calls from the basement, so you go inside and walk down the stairs. Even though there's a microcell only 10 feet away, call drops... because you can't switch back IN to the microcell.
Stamped on the bottom of the microcell? Cisco. Yup, some engineer at Cisco needs a sippy-cup to catch the drool, apparently... 'cause they don't understand telco, that's for sure!
(Don't get me started on their proprietary VoIP phone stuff... you think Apple's a vendor that locks you in... try integrating Cisco voice/video over IP with anyone else's products. It's awful, sometimes impossible, even. Standards mean nothing to them.)
So the AT&T Microcell on the surface looks like a great way to fix coverage problems in a typical home in a bad coverage area, but in practice... it doesn't work well at all.
Of course, this was what the pilot friend who shipped it to me said was the reason he demanded a refund for the thing from AT&T and got it, but I had to see it for myself.
Now... ALL of that to say... "I bet the phones do similar utterly stupid things trying to pick a band and a mode when flying above the outdoor cell towers, too."
And a whole lot of info thrown in on the AT&T microcell tech for anyone contemplating one to fix coverage issues. Hope that helps someone.
There's one application where the Microcell works grand, and another friend in NY is using it for this...
If you have a cabin waaaaay out in the boonies where the outdoor network doesn't work AT ALL.... the microcell will happily provide service. And the phone will have no other base station to talk to, and it'll stay like a lost hungry puppy right at the microcell's side, and work perfectly.
Since this turned into a complete review of AT&T microcell tech, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that data coverage through the microcell is god-awful slow.
Also, AT&T charges for every minute you're on it, just like you were on their outdoor network, and not using your ISP's bandwidth to handle the call, UNLESS... you pay an additional $15 a month per line to activate "unlimited microcell calling". Data is still charged however your data plan works, and even though you're just browsing through your home Net connection that the microcell is plugged into, you can bust your data cap limit on the microcell.
The good news is, you could probably download a 4 GB file (the typical AT&T cap) and it'd take you all month through the microcell, so maybe you wouldn't actually bust that cap. LOL!
Final weirdness... phone chews through batteries like there's not enough power in the world to talk across that 36" gap between the microcell and the phone in the same room. Unbelievably fast battery depletion when attached to the microcell. Can't tell you why, but it's bad. Really bad.
So,the Verdict: AT&T Microcell. Great conceptual idea, implementation is beyond FUBAR. Get one if you have zero coverage at home. Don't bother if you have spotty coverage.
The next experiments were going to be at dad's house in the boonies, maybe even let him keep the thing since he's always dropping calls out there too, but I found out he has a 2G phone, and the device doesn't handle 2G phones at all.
Meanwhile, co-worker on T-Mobile has true WiFi calling. He attaches the phone to the company WiFi and never misses a call. Maybe AT&T should take a cue from the company they're about to purchase?
