[nretdjuend]

Hah, my old man was just talking about them and how he bought stock in them. They seem to be a shaker and mover from the press they are getting in recent days.

Awesome stuff.

[ElenaEvgeevnaa]

uhh? no way it replaces the tower

[PristisoliTer]

uhh? no way it replaces the tower

Replace? Not really, enhance current ones and extend range etc yes. Thus reducing the need for more large expensive towers.

Each 1.5-Watt lightRadio cube powers about a two-block radius, so in urban areas, they can be deployed throughout the city and stacked like Lego blocks in stadiums or other areas that need extra capacity. In rural areas, they can be deployed atop existing cell towers in arrays.

[sciectotacype17]

Now the question is, will it take off? I doubt it.

It only has a 2 block radius? Seems like there is no need for it imo. Cities already have the best and most reliable coverage installed as it is. Then rural areas would benefit better from cell towers as they have the range needed for vast openness.
You can just build a few dozen towers to cover a city instead of what seems like tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of those little blocks all over a city that you'd have to manage just for a single city. Seems like it would be a nightmear to manage all those things.

Frequency that is for sale or already bought for cellulars basically doubles the range of the tower. If there are 30,000 towers, you now only need 15,000 with these new frequencies. Im not sure how long it is going to take for them to utilize that stuff. Though this stuff I think is better than that stupid block.


Those blocks would actually be nice for city WiFi service, but that is it imo.

[PristisoliTer]

It's almost as if you didn't read the article at all about the cost savings and operational cost savings these things offer.

It's not a question about more units or bigger towers...it is efficiency of use and cost of use. These have savings on both and more ease management....virtual management.

[ElenaEvgeevnaa]

so its like an access point for mobile signal?

[sciectotacype17]

It's almost as if you didn't read the article at all about the cost savings and operational cost savings these things offer.

It's not a question about more units or bigger towers...it is efficiency of use and cost of use. These have savings on both and more ease management....virtual management.

All they said is that these things have a more efficient antenna and are cheap. They give no actual numbers. How much are they? How much to maintain? They give a few numbers for towers costs to maintain an dupgrade, but not even costs esitmates or a price of that cube. All they say is the antenna is 30% more efficient and has a 2 block range radius.
Cities already have coverage, so they would need to then buy tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands for a single city just to replace the towers. They would have to buy a lease for every place they put one, which would be thousands of places in a single city. They'd have to manage thousands inside a single city a lone. If one goes out, have to quickly replace it cause it would cause a small block dead zone within the city.
What about the costs to install tens of thousands of these cubes just for a single city?

Just think of NYC. The vast number of blocks they would need to install as they only have a 2 block radius. The cost to install all those, the cost to maintain tens of thousands of little cubes. All the leases you'd have to get for tens of thousands of blocks to put on others property.
Towers are already in place, already giving coverage. There is frequcency avaible that doubles a towers range which means less towers are needed and frequency was recently made avaible to give more bandwidth to cell phone providers.

[PristisoliTer]

Which again I repeat, as the article says, these will never replace towers entirely due to long distance reasons.

Sizer said he sees lightRadio as a complimentary technology to existing cell towers. Those big antennas still serve a purpose, providing long distance signals or beams down a highway. If you think that these will cost more than a cell tower.....well...I'm just blown away. Could likely manufacture a sizable amount for the cost of a single tower....TO aid an existing tower rather than add another.

You think they pay leasing for power line and telephone poles? Interesting. Take a closer look at your itemized billing next time. Or just ask your county.

You're being incredibly illogical, and not fully reading the article. Don't just start pulling things out of thin air. You start off saying they don't give any data about efficiency or savings then you start pulling cost hypotheticals out of thin air.


Edit: Yes Duran, as I understand it.

[GtmFeqJJ]

All they said is that these things have a more efficient antenna and are cheap. They give no actual numbers. How much are they? How much to maintain? They give a few numbers for towers costs to maintain an dupgrade, but not even costs esitmates or a price of that cube. All they say is the antenna is 30% more efficient and has a 2 block range radius.
Cities already have coverage, so they would need to then buy tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands for a single city just to replace the towers. They would have to buy a lease for every place they put one, which would be thousands of places in a single city. They'd have to manage thousands inside a single city a lone. If one goes out, have to quickly replace it cause it would cause a small block dead zone within the city.
What about the costs to install tens of thousands of these cubes just for a single city?

Just think of NYC. The vast number of blocks they would need to install as they only have a 2 block radius. The cost to install all those, the cost to maintain tens of thousands of little cubes. All the leases you'd have to get for tens of thousands of blocks to put on others property.
Towers are already in place, already giving coverage. There is frequcency avaible that doubles a towers range which means less towers are needed and frequency was recently made avaible to give more bandwidth to cell phone providers.

You can always make them bigger, but it will never be as big as a tower, a tower workers have to climb on and its unsafe to say the least. Building a tower takes time and money. Building a cube such as this, take less time and less man power. A cube size of refrigerator will put out enough juice to the point that you wont need a tower, yet will cost less and you can move it around as needed at ease.

Towers are stationary and are built permanently to function in one place, moving one around or taking it apart to move it to another location is costly and time consuming.

There are dead spots in cities and suburbs, the only way we know till today to solve that issue is make new towers, but with cubes you can solve those dead spots at the fraction of the cost and in shorter time.

[intifatry]

This technology looks really promising. Only problem is that the Telcos need to improve their backhaul for greater amounts of data as well. I’m all for greater coverage though.

[sarasaraseda]

It only has a 2 block radius? Seems like there is no need for it imo. Cities already have the best and most reliable coverage installed as it is. Then rural areas would benefit better from cell towers as they have the range needed for vast openness.

A small coverage radius is the point. Wireless carriers have been shrinking the coverage areas for their towers for years, and will continue to do so in urban areas. A smaller radius allows them to service more customers with more bandwidth. The less people in a given coverage area allows them to dedicate a larger part of the spectrum to each customer. It also allows them to run at a much lower power on the "tower" and mobile device, saving power for your mobile device. Many benefits for smaller coverage areas.

You can just build a few dozen towers to cover a city instead of what seems like tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of those little blocks all over a city that you'd have to manage just for a single city. Seems like it would be a nightmear to manage all those things.

Do you have any idea how many directional wireless antennas a place like New York City has? Thousands and all of the major carriers are constantly adding more. A few dozen towers might have worked a few decades ago, but not these days.

[icyfreshy]

Looks like something Megatron would want.

[pesty4077]

I'm wondering how much effort it would be to manage all these little devices.

I guess in AU with the NBN that would solve the issue of easy access to fibre to provide back-haul from the cube. Otherwise I'd imagine currently it might not be so feasible in places that don't have fibre close by.

Perhaps this would also help put better mobile coverage in places like train lines. It would be most handy to have enough signal to use data effectively for my 40 minute trip.