[stampeder]

In the months of April through July of 2010 (and probably ongoing) a company identified in FCC records as "LANDOVER 2 LLC" has been applying for a massive number of Low Power Digital OTA TV (LPTV) licenses across the U.S.A., including one mentioned here by zapperman.

I did some digging and found some speculation on the Radio-Info.com site that LANDOVER 2 LLC is affiliated with this company:

http://www.ctbnetworks.com/

Wow, CTB is claiming that there is no need for further TV spectrum grabs by wireless enterprises. Looking at CTB's site I have to say that they're proposing quite an interesting usage of ATSC broadcasting technology! ATSC was designed as a digital data system, after all. I'm guessing that their "patent pending multi-frequency cellular terrestrial network technology" employs a CDMA or TDMA type of system, but maybe someone can find the patent application.

Take a good look through CTB's site and let us know here what really sticks out most about it for you.

Keep in mind that LPTV stations have always been the "low man" on the U.S. TV broadcasting totem pole, with full power stations enjoying a wide variety of benefits and "seniority" over them, so this will be quite interesting to see how it all might play out and to what extent ATSC MH (Mobile) will play a part.

 

[ota_canuck]

If this speculated cause of envirnmental doom is true, then the careless and wasteful use of the eletro-magnetic spectrum by these greedy money grubbing BDU's may be as big an environmental issue as our carbon footprint.

Many countries are seeing significant declines in their bee populations. Naturally, climate change, pesticides, and viruses are just three of the commonly proposed possible culprits. However, the Indian researchers thought there might be something else involved, so they decided to perform a controlled experiment. They placed a couple of cell phones around a hive, with a couple of fake ones around another hive; a third hive had no cell phones at all.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-20006445-71.html

It has been long speculated that wireless is the culprit of depleting the global bee population. Micro-wave may become the dreaded pollutant of the 21st century. But in the name of the almighty buck, and the BDU lobbyists, it may be too little too late to turn back the damage.

 

[zapperman]

What strikes me is that this looks to be a huge, innovative and costly undertaking for a seemingly fairly small company. I think it's very interesting and would like to see it, but I question whether they could pull this off. I hope so but I am a little skeptical.

 

[mr weather]

I tried looking for their alleged patent application but couldn't find one. Granted I didn't spend a whole lot of time but if CTB is the money behind it I would have expected they'd show up in a search in the USPTO as the assignee.

 

[artthe1]

This is somewhat related. There's a subscription service called FLO TV that uses UHF 55 to transmit to personal TVs and mobile phones. The signal should go into Canada from border areas. More info at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLO_TV www.flotv.com

 

[majortom]

Yeah, Media Flo has been around for a long time. Never knew it was UHF 55 though, that's cool. The signalling for authentication of service, etc. goes over a 3G wireless network, while the content comes down via The Media Flo Channel.
If ya google around for an LG-VU handset (LG-CU920), that's one example of a phone capable of receiving Media Flo. It has a seperate Retractable telescoping antenna for the Media-Flo service. Last I knew, Media Flo was only launched in Larger Markets. Closest to me was in Rochester and Syracuse, NY. They should have coverage maps on that link above too I think.