Instead he has simply designed an antenna array.
Posted on 05/16/2014 6:14:28 PM PDT by Kid Shelleen
Aereo, whose future hangs in the balance as the Supreme Court weighs its case against the nation’s major broadcasters, is playing up an upgraded version of a free, 30-day trial of its service that provides access to an extra antenna and three times the storage of its basic offering.
The promotion offers a free month to Aereo’s higher-end, $12 per month tier, which allows users to record two shows at once and 60 hours of cloud DVR storage. Its a cloud DVR with 20 hours of DVR storage. Its basic, $8 per month plan provides access to one antenna and a cloud DVR with 20 hours of DVR storage.
(Excerpt) Read more at multichannel.com ...
Are they still trying to claim that each subscriber is “assigned” a single antenna?
Have fun using a cloud service for hd content and hitting your bandwidth cap. Thanks to ISPs, our internet service is moving backwards to the days of dialup where you only get so much access per month. I use on average 200gigs of month. That’s watching Netflix and xfinity on demand streaming on a home theater PC. I wont pay their stupid rental fee and can’t afford a ceton tuner. Plus, streaming gets me hd content despite not paying for the upgraded service.
In my area, Comcast isn’t enforcing their cap but ATT is. Rather than innovate, they want to stifle technology growth in an effort to maintain their greedy monopolies. Telecoms have a rich history of shady business practices so its no surprise and laying fiber isn’t cheap, despite the gov picking up a portion of the tab.
As a once avid over the air tuner user, its worth explaining how difficult it can be to get good reception. You need a clear line of site. This product fixes that issue for millions of people who live in environments, like apartments, that aren’t suitable for antenna use. Some places only allow direct tv and dish network equipment. Some are lucky enough to be able to take the dish down and replaced with a uhf or vhf antenna but most apartments wont allow it.
“Are they still trying to claim that each subscriber is “assigned” a single antenna?”
Well, that’s not just a claim. I think that this guy was pretty ingenious in coming up with this from a legal point of view. It’s not really any different than you leasing a home entertainment system, maintenance included in the deal, and you have a really long-range remote control and binoculars. That is not illegal.
“Some places only allow direct tv and dish network equipment.”
Even if this place is rented, this is probably an illegal restriction as per Federal law, which trumps any homeowners association, local, federal or state law. They aren’t “permitting” anything by “allowing” direct TV. I know this because I was an officer of a HOA and I looked into it due to someone’s complaint.
http://www.fcc.gov/guides/installing-consumer-owned-antennas-and-satellite-dishes
For sure there is a long history of shady relationships between cable companies and local politicians.
He may be a genius in coming up with this from a legal point of view, but from an engineering point of view it is an outright lie. His antenna array only works as an array, and there is no individual micro antenna assigned to each subscriber.
/johnny
Instead he has simply designed an antenna array.
/johnny
/johnny
"[0007] Unlike antenna elements in a phased array, it is not desirable to have multiple antenna elements competing over the same incident power. To minimize coupling between antenna elements, users are not assigned randomly to antenna elements within the array. Instead, they are selectively assigned to antenna elements based on which channels are requested by the users and to which channels the other antenna elements are already tuned."
A tuned phased array.
I started off building Colpitts oscillators with triodes. I've seen too much change too fast for me to be dogmatic about something I haven't seen the schematic of.
/johnny
That's all I needed....Its all about you!..........*S*
Antenna System with Small Multi-Band Antennas
Abstract:Multi-band antennae used for television reception of at least two different frequency bands enable multi-band reception with an electrically small antenna. The designs are applicable to individual antenna elements, two dimensional arrays, three dimensional arrays, and arrays constructed for high volumetric efficiency. By using the multi-band element, greater frequency reception is achieved with greater density possible in the antenna arrays.
Claims:
1. An antenna system comprising: a circuit board having an antenna section and a tuner/demodulator section; an array of antennas installed on the antenna section that is controlled by and provides antenna feeds to tuners and demodulators in the tuner/demodulator section; and tuning feed networks for the antennas that connect the antennas to corresponding tuners and demodulators.
So when a subscriber wants to watch a specific off-air channel, he is "assigned" to the antenna array that is tuned to that channel. Multiple subscribers are "assigned" to the same antenna elements at the same time if they are watching the same channel. This is very different from "each subscriber is assigned their own antenna."
Personally, I like what Aereo is doing, and I hope that they prevail, but most likely they are going to lose at the Supreme Court level and will have to negotiate retransmission consent just like the cable companies do.
Then it will be a viable service and a flourishing company.
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