08.05.08

ISABEL08 still unofficially open for submissions

Posted in Conferences, Quick Links at 10:17 am by jody

Got an email stating that ISABEL08 is unofficially open for submissions until Aug 10. (I can’t go, it conflicts with the SDR Forum)

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07.28.08

DySPAN acceptance date pushed back

Posted in Conferences at 7:23 pm by jody

Since it still says that paper acceptance should occur today on the DySPAN website, I thought it would be a public service to pass along a note I got from Milind Buddhikot (technical co-chair) today.

“We plan to send out ACCEPT notifications on August 8 and request final photo-camera ready papers to be submitted to IEEE by August 21.”

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07.25.08

Quick Links

Posted in Conferences, Quick Links, White Space at 4:48 pm by jody

(link) The International Symposium on Wireless and Pervasive Computing has issued a call for papers. Related topics include cognitive radio and cooperative communications. It’ll be held from Feb 11-13, 2009 in Melbourne, Australia. Papers are due October 12.

(link) The schedule for the next SDRF meeting / workshop is now posted. The focus of the workshop is “Government and Industry R&D Agendas for Next Generation Radio Technologies” (read as cognitive radio) and Bill Lehr (MIT) will give a talk on “Building the Ecosystem for Commercial Cognitive Radio”. Interestingly, the agenda page (pdf) lists meeting times for a white space task group. (Other than an agreement that it would be a good idea, it hasn’t actually gotten off the ground yet.)

(link) White Space Tests at the DNC and RNC conventions?

(link) The WaPo has a nice article (from yesterday) overviewing the current round of testing. Interestingly, only the Motorola device is aided by geolocation - something I expect to eventually be a requirement. (The WaPo sometimes requires a login, if you’re asked for one, try these.)

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07.23.08

Site notes July 23, 2008

Posted in Uncategorized at 9:05 am by jody

Or hey, why doesn’t my link to post x work anymore?

Short version: Upgraded to wordpress 2.6. Old permalinks to posts with a date format are broken, everything else should be fine (links are there, just a different format for the url).

Long version: Noticed that yahoo (the host) wasn’t automatically upgrading wordpress as they were supposed to and there was some weird stuff showing up in search engine crawls (background). So I used the wordpress widget to automatically upgrade the site and virtually everything broke. After a bunch of manual php and sql editing, I think everything is back to its quasi-normal state, except for the permalinks whose format I had to change. The permalinks will appear normal if you’re clicking through from this site, but old external links will be broken because of the format change.

(This is apparently not an uncommon problem, nor one I could find a fix for. So if you know of a fix for permalinks and yahoo hosted wordpress 2.6, leave a comment. FYI, as a “feature” yahoo eats the .htaccess file whose editing wordpress suggests for other hosts.)

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07.18.08

Quick Links - July 18, 2008

Posted in Quick Links, TV Bands, White Space, military, regulation, research initiatives at 3:41 pm by jody

Or all white space, all the time! But first, some non-white space links…

(link) Call for more dynamic spectrum policies. Not a lot new there for those active in the policy arena. Key graphs:

“Traditionally, spectrum policy has been all about exclusive licensing for specific service, during extended time periods. The considered opinion now is that static long-term licensing of spectrum hinders fast innovation cycles, and across the board. The fact of the matter is that new technologies tend to diffuse faster than regulations, especially in dynamic sectors like telecom. Already, the considerable strides made in digital technology, such as spread spectrum, software defined radio and mesh networks, do call into question the policy of administrative allocation of exclusive-use licenses.

…

With novel software, coordination amongst service providers in real time can allow umpteen secondary devices to transmit even while providing the right quality of service and non-interference for cellular customers. The bottom line is that we need proactive spectrum policy to fastforward growth of the most desired applications, as they evolve and take off.”

(link) The US Air Force is funding Finnish cognitive radio research. (I don’t know which Finns. I assume CWC @ Oulu, but I don’t see confirmation on their research page)

Officials from the Air Force, Army and Navy are now funding a Finnish research program that explores new approaches for improving telecommunications network management.

The ultimate goal is to build on this basic research and create a cognitive network that will use rational decision-making methods to improve the speed and quality of information delivered via Defense Department networks.

(link) Ars Technica has a nice overview on the current round of white space testing.

(link - pdf) The current white space test schedule. Note a sports and entertainment venues are on the schedule.

(link) There was a complaint filed with the FCC on interference from unlicensed wireless microphones. Mmmm politics. I thought I went into engineering to avoid that. (FYI, the Public Interest Spectrum Coalition is not completely new as the article implies; they also were active in the 700 MHz block - see link1 & link 2)

A group calling itself the Public Interest Spectrum Coalition (PISC) and the Media Access Project have filed a complaint with the FCC regarding the unlicensed use of wireless microphones. The Media Access Project has filed a proposed “pathway to authorisation” for existing users that would help to protect new public safety and commercial wireless services operating on UHF channels 52-60 from 17 February 2009.

Michael Marcus has much more on this.

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07.10.08

White space news / quick links (July 10, 2008)

Posted in Quick Links, Uncategorized, White Space at 11:04 am by jody

Since, procrastinating on starting my paper reviews = blogging, here’s some random white space links / news:

KU issued a press release on their white space testbed here. I didn’t see anything technically useful in the press release which just says the testbed shows that white space devices will not interfere with DTV reception, but there’s no details on the setup. Poking around the KU website, I did find this white paper (pdf) from May 2007, which has some measurement data from that testbed to backup a claim that adjacent channels could be used. But that seems a bit dated.

(link) Sports stadiums have offered their facilities for live testing of white space devices this fall.

(no link - first-hand reporting!) It looks like the SDR Forum (SDRF) will be spinning up a project to develop an analytic model for mobile white space devices. There’s supposed to be an initial phone call in late July to organize the project and based on other discussions, I believe this activity will be run out of the SDRF cognitive radio working group (CRWG) beginning in August.

If it is indeed hosted out of the CRWG, we’re pretty liberal about accepting contributions from non-SDRF members, so even if you’re not in the SDRF, you can participate (though bylaws say you can’t vote nor could you hold a leadership position).

I’ll post more information about this after the late July phone call.

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Bikes, cars and sharing spectrum

Posted in White Space, military, regulation, spectrum at 10:29 am by jody

In the non-cognitive radio blogosphere, there’s a bit of a brouhaha over whether the rules of the road should favor bikes or cars. See these 5 posts for a more detailed background on the car vs bike showdown (1, 2, 3 , 4, 5).

Perhaps it’s only because I’m a big CR geek, but I think this discussion has some insights for the CR community. Read the whole post for my thoughts on how bikes and cars relate to white space and shared spectrum in general.

Read the rest of this entry »

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06.26.08

Quick Links 6/26/08

Posted in Conferences, Quick Links, White Space, companies at 9:37 am by jody

(link) DySPAN demo synopses have been posted.

(link) Omesh is a new (to me) cognitive network spinout from the University of Toronto.

I didn’t know the University of Toronto was doing cognitive networking
I found this youtube VC pitch video. They need a new pitchman. Just because you invent the technology doesn’t mean you should be its public face. Except for me ;) but I’ve got the world’s weirdest business model (pdf).
Here’s their founder’s publications page.

(link) FCC to being field testing of white space devices soon. [Most of the article is about MSTV + Shure vs the WSC]

(link) A press release on the policy / DSA Yuma field trials by Shared Spectrum, Thales, and Harris.

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