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The Telecom Digest for December 29, 2011
Volume 30 : Issue 333 : "text" Format
====== 30 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======
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Date: Wed, 28 Dec 2011 16:18:26 +1100
From: David Clayton <dcstarbox-usenet@yahoo.com.au>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Mexican cartels build radio network for military precision
Message-ID: <pan.2011.12.28.05.18.25.40542@yahoo.com.au>
Mexican cartels build radio network for military precision
December 28, 2011
When convoys of soldiers or federal police move through the scrubland of
northern Mexico, the Zetas drug cartel knows they are coming.
The alert goes out from a taxi driver or a street vendor, equipped with a
high-end handheld radio and paid to work as a lookout known as a "halcon,"
or hawk.
The radio signal travels deep into the arid countryside, hours by foot
from the nearest road. There, the 2-meter-tall dark-green branches of the
rockrose bush conceal a radio tower painted to match. A cable buried in
the dirt draws power from a solar panel.
[Moderator snip]
Read more:
http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/mexican-cartels-build-radio-network-for-military-precision-20111228-1pbyx.html#ixzz1hnsVGWGG
***** Moderator's Note *****
Ham radio operators in the U.S. and Mexico have been constructing and
using repeaters since the 1970's. This is the kind of "fluff" piece
that reporters come up with when they have a hangover and feel like
phoning it in.
Instead of trying to make a radio repeater seem like a whiz-bang
achievement, AP's reporters would get a lot more respect if they
followed the trails of the drugs and the money that paid for the
radios: the reason they choose not to is left as an exercise for the
reader.
Bill Horne
Moderator
Date: Wed, 28 Dec 2011 19:58:26 +0000 (UTC)
From: wollman@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman)
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Mexican cartels build radio network for military precision
Message-ID: <jdfsd2$ojp$1@grapevine.csail.mit.edu>
In article <pan.2011.12.28.05.18.25.40542@yahoo.com.au>,
David Clayton <dcstarbox-usenet@yahoo.com.au> wrote:
>Instead of trying to make a radio repeater seem like a whiz-bang
>achievement, AP's reporters would get a lot more respect if they
>followed the trails of the drugs and the money that paid for the
>radios: the reason they choose not to is left as an exercise for the
>reader.
The people who do so have a disturbing tendency to wind up dead. No
news organization asks that of its reporters.
-GAWollman
--
Garrett A. Wollman | What intellectual phenomenon can be older, or more oft
wollman@bimajority.org| repeated, than the story of a large research program
Opinions not shared by| that impaled itself upon a false central assumption
my employers. | accepted by all practitioners? - S.J. Gould, 1993
***** Moderator's Note *****
If reporters are afraid that covering a story risks their lives, then
let them write that: at least they won't be part of the pretense
that the justice system is working.
Any physician will tell you that there is, has always been, and always
will be a certain percentage of people who need alkaloids. Our
tight-assed Pilgrim forefathers are holding on to our morals by their
bony skeletal fingers, and in the process, providing aid and comfort
to a vast criminal network that is eating away at ordinary people's
respect for the law and for the lawmakers. At some point (and in
Mexico, that point is long past), the drug kingpins become the
government, and the ordinary rules of law cease to function. It happen
in Chicago during prohibition, it happened in Columbia, and it has
happened in Mexico. We're next.
Let's copy the English: addicts get treatment. Heroin and similar
drugs are only expensive because they're illegal, and in England (and
other countries), the government is realistic enough to know that
denying immense sums of cash to functionally illiterate thugs is more
important than saving face or pretending there is an easy answer.
Bill Horne
Moderator
Date: Wed, 28 Dec 2011 17:35:17 -0600
From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi)
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Mexican cartels build radio network for military precision
Message-ID: <4Z6dnScNiJcoOmbTnZ2dnUVZ_qSdnZ2d@posted.nuvoxcommunications>
In article <pan.2011.12.28.05.18.25.40542@yahoo.com.au>,
David Clayton <dcstarbox-usenet@yahoo.com.au> wrote:
>Mexican cartels build radio network for military precision
>December 28, 2011
>
>When convoys of soldiers or federal police move through the scrubland of
>northern Mexico, the Zetas drug cartel knows they are coming.
>
>The alert goes out from a taxi driver or a street vendor, equipped with a
>high-end handheld radio and paid to work as a lookout known as a "halcon,"
>or hawk.
>
>The radio signal travels deep into the arid countryside, hours by foot
>from the nearest road. There, the 2-meter-tall dark-green branches of the
>rockrose bush conceal a radio tower painted to match. A cable buried in
>the dirt draws power from a solar panel.
>
>[Moderator snip]
>
>Read more:
>
>http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/mexican-cartels-build-radio-network-for-military-precision-20111228-1pbyx.html#ixzz1hnsVGWGG
>
>
>
>***** Moderator's Note *****
>
> Ham radio operators in the U.S. and Mexico have been constructing
> and using repeaters since the 1970's.
Would you believe the *1930*s for the earliest repeaters ?? on the 5-m band.
Ham VHF/UHF repeaters 'sprouted up like weeds' in the early 70s, because of
an FCC rules change that rendered a lot of existing commercial gear
"unusable" on commercial frequencies. With all that 'excess supply', hams
could pick up the gear for really inexpensive prices. And, a lot of them
did. :)
> This is the kind of "fluff" piece that reporters come up with when
> they have a hangover and feel like phoning it in.
The Zeta's system is far more complex than the typical U.S. Ham, or even
commercial, repeater. It approaches the sophistication of the cellular
phone network. Multiple radio relays, ability to 'call' a specific radio,
even if the call must be relayed through multiple relay links, etc.
At a minimum, it appears to be an enhanced multi-channel digital 'trunking'
radio "network".
There is legitimate news content there.
***** Moderator's Note *****
Damned right there is! However, the medium is not the message. It
doesn't matter what technology is in use: what matters is that the
cartels have the money to buy it!
Forest for the trees, dude.
Bill Horne
Moderator
Date: Wed, 28 Dec 2011 11:42:48 -0500
From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: LightSquared: Style Drift In The Service of Returns Is No Vice
Message-ID: <20111228164248.GA31392@telecom.csail.mit.edu>
A partner at ACM Partners defends Phil Falcone - sort of
Mr. Johnson doesn't mince words about how LightSquared is trying to
avoid spectrum auction fees by re-purposing the SkyTerra ATC
authorization, which is from the same play-book that Craig McCaw
followed when planning Nextel's "push-to-talk" network. It's
refreshing to see an opinion that gets to the heart of the matter: the
immense profit that Harbinger Capital will enjoy if its lobbying
efforts bear fruit, and Mr. Johnson compliments Mr. Falcone for having
powerful enemies.
What Mr. Johnson doesn't point out is that AT&T and Verizon, used to
multi-million dollar budgets and to having the FCC do whatever they
ask, are both miffed that LightSquared might repeat McCaw's success
and join the major leagues without having done time playing triple-A
ball. I doubt that either firm is concerned about the competition, but
I'd bet that they are very worried that Mr. Falcone will pull off an
inside-the-park home run, and, in the process, cause Verizon's and
AT&T's investors to wonder if their management teams are playing out
of their league.
(From the Business Insider blog)
by David Johnson
Many successful investors have proclaimed the wisdom of betting on
the jockey rather than the horse when making their investment
decisions. This is entirely sensible, as outstanding management
has certainly proven its value time and again for start-ups,
multi-nationals, private equity firms and hedge funds. But (to
strain this metaphor somewhat) occasionally the jockey opts for a
different race, track, etc. For private equity firms and hedge
funds this is style drift; and it represents the point at which
betting on the jockey gets complicated.
The case of Phil Falcone, founder and Chief Investment Officer of
Harbinger Capital Partners and LightSquared, his bet-the-firm
investment, illustrates the ragged edge of the conundrum that "bet
on the jockey" types can face when the jockey wakes up one day and
decides to use the same horse to play a different game.
...
Through a series of debt and equity investments in satellite
companies Inmarsat and SkyTerra Falcone assembled, for
approximately $2 billion, a 56 megahertz block of radio
spectrum. LightSquared is the company Falcone has created to build
a cellular network from this valuable spectrum. This is basically
an attempt to repeat Craig McCaw's success with Nextel, whose
network was assembled cheaply by buying up taxi dispatch licenses
(any good restructuring/distressed professional is a font of wisdom
on business plans and it is surely no accident that LightSquared
represents an attempt to replicate such a successful strategy).
Unfortunately for Falcone, the block of spectrum LightSquared owns
is adjacent to the frequency used for GPS signals, and he has
stepped into a hornet's nest of regulatory intrigue. Given that his
opponents include Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa, John Deere
(yes, the tractor company), the Pentagon, Verizon and AT&T (whose
lobbying prowess, despite the T-Mobile debacle, has long been
considered formidable), Falcone might reasonably consider that he
is on to something.
http://www.businessinsider.com/lightsquared-style-drift-in-the-service-of-returns-is-no-vice-2011-12
--
Bill Horne
(Filter QRM from my email address to write to me directly)
"See the drunkard in the tavern
Spending gold to make ends meet
See the youth in ghetto black
Condemned to life upon the street"
- Gordon Lightfoot
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