Almost Twenty Five Years Ago

From a filing for Pioneer Preference in May 1992 I wrote the following:

From FCC Pioneer Preference May 3 1992

Telmarc Telecommunications

KEY TECHNOLOGICAL ELEMENTS

            5. The following technological approaches will be deployed, integrated, tested, and optimized to determine their effectiveness in providing the specified service quality goals.

(1) Adaptive Network Management: Adaptive Network Management, ANM, is a system that uses in-situ sensors to monitor the power and signal quality throughout the network. The number of sensors will greatly exceed the number of cell locations. This set of dynamic measurements will then be used in a feedback schemes to adaptive change the characteristics of the cell transmit power and other characteristics to maximize the service quality. Specifically, the Petitioners have individually designed a proprietary network management system that uses the in-situ sensors that monitor all key signal elements. These elements are power, frequency, interference, noise, and other significant signal parameters. The system then transmits these signals back to a central processor which then generates an optimal signal to control the cell site transmission characteristics, such as power, frequency and other factors. The overall objective is to optimize the system performance from the users perspective.

(2) Gateway RF Digital Front Ends: A broadband, digital front end will be used to act as a gateway to interface the air interfaces of CDMA, TDMA and other access methods through the same cell and in the same frequency band. This system will permit multiple air interfaces to be gatewayed into the same network access point thus reducing the need for a single standard, and increasing the ability to provide a national network. This front end has been developed by Steinbrecher Assoc, of Woburn, MA. The system element allows, through its use of large gain bandwidth product front end and fully digital RF processing, the ability to handles many different and simultaneous multiple access methods, such as TDMA and CDMA. This ability goes to the heart of interoperability and standards.

(3) CDMA Backbone Network: The Petitioner will use a CDMA air interface and access methodology. The Petitioner fully supports the efforts of QUALCOMM in their development and implementation of CDMA in the 800 MHz band and their recent movement of this to the 1.85-1.90 GHz bands. Although there is no uniqueness in the use of CDMA, the Petitioners argue that this technology has specific characteristics that allow for the delivery a maximum benefit to the public.

(4) Co-Located Distributed Switch Access: Unlike other proposed schemes which use redundant MTSO accesses, this trial will focus on Central Office Co-Location methods that reduce capital and operating cost redundancies. The co-location approach, will minimize access line costs and eliminate the need for a MTSO. The adjunct processors at the Central Offices will be interconnected by a high speed bus to allow for adequate control and call hand-off. Co-Location is achieved via the intelligence that is contained in the CDMA cell sites and the adjunct processor distribute communications and processing capabilities. The fundamental existence of this capability was demonstrated by QUALCOMM in their CDMA trial, albeit not in the Co-Location context. The QUALCOMM QTSO was in effect a no Co-Located adjunct. The Petitioners propose to request access from the PUC in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to access New England Telephone on a Co-Locations basis. The public good achieved is through the reduction in costs and the ability to use existing capital assets provided by the LECs. The uniqueness of the Petitioners proposals are the fact that extensive use of adjuncts will be made in the system operation.

(5) Adaptive Beam Forming Phased Array Technology: One of the current problems with a cellular systems will be the use of broad beam antennas and the inability to provide additional antenna gain on both transmit and receive to the individual portables. With the use of adaptive beam forming antennas, the service to lower power portables may be improved. The Petitioners approach will include such capabilities. Time dynamic control of these multiple bean antennas will permit higher localized gain on portables, which will in turn allow for lower transmit power and thus longer portable battery life. The Petitioners have been discussing the use of the technology developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Lincoln Laboratory in this area.

All of the above are now becoming a reality in wireless. Timing is everything, so is living long enough!

Ginkgo Nuts, Biodiversity and Climate Change

Some twenty five or so years ago I got some ginkgo nuts from the New York Botanical Garden. I planted them and last year one of the trees, a female, was filled with nuts. Fantastic. The squirrels did not seem to have any interest, smelly seed coats, but well that was not the end. Come Spring, the coat had gone and the squirrels managed to consume every one! The ginkgo has managed to survive some 100 million plus years but it had not faced the squirrel.

Now as we go further north we see the grey squirrel also going there as the warming occurs and thus many flora that were dependent on small consumption by red squirrels will be under siege by grey ones. The issue of changing and complex biodiversity means that there will be challenges to flora and fauna.

I make this comment because I have read a paper by Dr. Victoria Karchenko at The Botanical Garden Institute in Vladivostok where she states:


Now the climate changes become more pronounced. This affects to biodiversity and distribution of plants. Therefore, we need to study of the biodiversity and trends distribution of plants in specific environments. In this connection is necessary to clarify real composition of species in the of regional floras potential of their variability of and disseminating. A pressing problem remains the creation of a unified database of the flora of Russia, which takes into account the data of regional studies.  Research program allows executing posed problems if it would coordinate with other botanical gardens. This program will allow revealing structural and functional adaptation of species to various environmental conditions. This will help create a basis for design ways to regulation the development of plants and biotops.

As I had indicated, the paper by Dr. Kharchenko presents a very compelling argument for the development of a detailed flora for Russia especially the Eastern parts. We have been using certain sentinel plants such as Hemerocallis which are native to this part of Russia to measure long term climate changes. It is essential to have a detailed data base not only of the flora per se but more importantly an understanding of their propagation status based upon the balance with pollinators as well as fauna which may consume the plants before they can complete their re population cycle. We have seen not only a shift in bloom time and divergence with pollinators but more importantly animal predators on plants growing in numbers. This is a critical study especially in this highly bio-diverse area.

Eastern Russia is an relatively unexplored treasure trove of biological species. Many of my Hemerocallis are from there and there are still new species of that genus being discovered. However there may have been a balance in biodiversity for millennium but as we see warming we would expect drastic changes. To understand the changes we need a baseline and the proposal to establish such a well defined baseline is essential. There clearly should be substantial support for this effort, since one would expect the time scale for change to be quite short.