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Is the Cell Phone Good Enough for IFB?
TVNEWSDAY, Jul 31 2008, 8:50 AM ET
By Eric Small
By most reports, one of the major impacts of Tuesday's earthquake in California was loss of cell phone service, not from any physical damage to the network but from blockage — that is, too many people trying to make calls at the same time.
For broadcasters, the earthquake and the disruption of cell service should serve as a reminder that the cell phone is an unreliable means for IFB links with reporters in the field, especially during emergencies.
Most TV stations spend hundreds of thousands of dollars — perhaps millions — preparing for a power blackout, but little money or thought about what they would do if their cell phone suddenly became useless.
Loss of IFB with reporters could prove costly, not only to a station's ability to report the news, but also to its viewers who rely on that news in a time of crisis.
The cell phone has a number of problems.
If blockage doesn't deprive you of cell phone service during a major "incident," Priority Access Service (PAS) will. The FCC encourages cellular carriers to provide PAS to emergency services personnel at all times. PAS ensures that emergency workers will get the next available wireless circuit, regardless of how many non-priority users are waiting. With most cellular companies offering PAS, the chances of an ENG crew getting wireless circuits for IFB or any other use during a major news story is very low.
Random disconnects are also a problem. We've all experienced them. It often seems that the longer a cell call is, the more likely it is to suffer a "random" disconnect. While it's denied by the cell phone carriers, many people believe that the cell phone system is programmed to disconnect long calls during busy usage times. Whether that's the case or not, it's a common occurrence and losing IFB during a live ENG segment is a sure way to ruin a reporter's day.
Also, long and variable transmission delays are common to cell phone calls. This is the delay between when you say "hello" and when the person you're speaking to hears it. Engineers call this latency and it's the reason that people find themselves "talking over" each other during some cell calls. On some cell phone systems, latency can sometimes reach as much as three-quarters of a second.
Cost, in the form of time charges, is another disadvantage of using cell phones for IFB. Thirty or 45 minutes of IFB connect time often precedes even a brief live shot. Multiply each of those shots by two or three news shows a day, times the number of ENG vans, by five or six news days a week and it comes to a lot of cell phone minutes. As a result, it's not unusual to run up cell phone bills of thousands of dollars a month for news departments.
And remember, cell phone usage while airborne in any type of aircraft is prohibited. Just in case you think that you can "get away with it," you can't. The cell systems can detect that you're in the air and turn off your phone, usually within the first 30 seconds of placing or receiving a call.
To make matters worse, Analog PRO Channel, another popular technology for IFB, will not function after the analog shutdown on Feb. 17, 2009.
There are three alternatives to cell phone for IFB available.
Two-way radio. The original carrier for IFB and still a viable one, if you can get private channel allocated. The problem is that few frequencies are assigned for broadcast operations and in all but the smallest markets the frequencies must be shared. If you're lucky, you share them with another broadcaster, if not, maybe the local fuel oil delivery company. Either way, half-hour IFB feeds are out of the question.
DRL. When the FCC "refarmed" the 2 GHz ENG band, it allocated 40 channels for IFB service in the new band. My company, Modulation Sciences, built equipment for this band and obtained an experimental license from the FCC to conduct a test. Our test results were positive. Unfortunately, the DRL channels are located within the video channels of the existing band. Because the 2 GHz relocation is behind schedule, it will not be until some time after the analog shutdown that DRL channels will be available to broadcasters.
In addition, DRL requires the construction of infrastructure-steerable antennas, receivers and transmitters suitable for mounting outdoors on a tower. My guess is that it will take three to five years for DRL to become a useful technology for news operations.
IFB on the digital transport stream. This technology places IFB audio in the transport steam (the main signal) of your station. It is much like a digital version of Analog PRO Channel. The system would be as reliable as your station's signal. After Modulation Sciences realized that DRL would not be usable in time to replace Analog PRO Channel, we selected this technology as an immediate solution to providing IFB after analog shutdown. We expect to begin delivery of a Digital Proceiver by the end of the third quarter.
Most of the time, the cell phone will work just fine. But when you need it the most you may discover it may not work at all.
Consider the alternatives.
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