Remember the days – maybe yesterday or the day before (I'm beginning to sound like one of those guys who says, “I remember when I had to trudge to school barefoot for five miles, through nine-foot drifts and no coat or shoes, just to get my education! You've got it easy!”
Well, before you climb down my throat over that comment, let me say this about that: “I never did have to trudge to school (although I did have to ride my bike for a while when the principal got mad at me – that's another story)” as we did have good bus service and Mr. Hurley was an excellent driver.
Enough is too much
With that said, though, I have to point out one of the most pointless comments I've heard on The Weather Channel in a long, long time. In one of their “Weather Live” segments during an evening, the hosts urged everyone with smartphones, WiFi cameras or any network-centric video device to take photos of an incident and shoot them right to the Weather Channel.
The key problem is that while the Weather Channel weather forecasters are great at their jobs, they should remain forecasters and leave the job of asking for more and more streaming video or other imagery to those who know something about what happens when you have too many devices trying to access a limited resource – bandwidth.
Of course, by now your eyes are glazing over with questions like “What'd he mean? What'd he say? What does he know?”
Background credentials
First, let me give you some of my credentials. I have been involved in the use of RF technology for more than 30 years as a Ham Radio operator and supporter of emergency management efforts, local, statewide and even nationally for a bit. During that time, I have operated a variety of modes including digital modes, voice modes and even Morse Code.
One thing you find out when you have many radios trying to access a limited resource – in the case of Ham Radio each channel is about 3 MHz total top to bottom – with an offset of 600 Hz, depending on the frequency either transmitting high and coming out on a lower frequency or the other way around. In any case, if you have more than one conversation going on at any given time you end up with “doubling” or stations trying to talk over one another and the result is gibberish.
Now, let's translate this to the digital world because the digital world, believe it or not is actually a digital analog of the real world. Here's what www.landuwebmonnet.gfi.com, an expert site on the relationship of bandwidth to usage has to say about trying to ask for more and more streaming video or even just single or double video images of weather events, at peak times, such as in the middle of a weather event:
Bandwidth limits
Streaming radio and video are severe bandwidth hogs which can saturate your connection and cripple critical Internet applications. Audio and video content can quickly create a network bottleneck especially in peak times or during events of interest, for example during news, entertainment and sports events.(my emphasis)
Simply put, even if you want all of the video in the known universe to come to your site to illustrate a weather event, the digital mechanics of it just won't permit it.
It's much like a self-building roadblock, despite what the “experts” tell you. For example, AT&T and T-Mobile operate on four main frequency bands 800, 900, 1800 and 1900 MHz, which seems like a lot of room for lots of imagery. However, when you have 10 or 15 streaming videos coming in on one of those channels and there are similar streams coming in on other channels, you just can't get any more information across.
Demand-driven network
Yes, other information can access this network, but that's only when the earlier information has been sent through. There's another set of frequencies that a re slightly different (the first set is known as GSM channels, while the second set operates on HSDPA frequencies) and adds 2100 MHz. Again, there's only so much bandwidth available for these frequencies.
Then, there's the CDMA networks which have the same limitations and they don't work with the GSM/HSPDA. Sprint, which is slowly switching over the GSM, still uses CDMA networking.
The bottom line is that with all of the available devices available and with all of the amateurs trying their hand at storm-chasing and sending their information in to either the National Weather Service or the Weather Channel or AccuWeather, you still run into the ultimate problem that there's a limited amount of bandwidth available and there's only so much data that can be pushed down those pipes. Things are going to be missed.
Skywarn program expansion
That's why the National Weather Service is pushing for an expansion of the Skywarn Weather Spotting program and there are also making further use of Voice Over IP (Echolink, for example) links. Many of these VoIP links are actually linked Ham repeaters that can take information via standard Ham reports or via the Internet.
The bottom line, though, is that there's only so much that you can push through the data pipes (frequencies) that exist – and any likelihood that they will be expanded lies somewhere in the future, if they are expanded at all. They may be, but that's for another column.
Comments