Cellular networks do not share the same frequency limitations as radio. In radio, a single frequency will be used to cover a range of 100 miles or so. This is a natural range, so that you can cross a city and continue to listen to the same station. However, you will eventually lose the station. Cellular networks are fundamentally different, in that you can regularly jump between towers (changing frequencies, as it happens) and still maintain the phone call. It's possible to drive vast distances and maintain a single phone call, while using many, many towers in the process.

The whole reason it's called a "cellular" network is because they are "cells" - one for each tower (give or take multiple carriers sharing a tower). These cells overlap, and operate in different parts of the frequency spectrum. The important point about understanding this "cell" nature is that there is no reason a cell in rural Kansas has to be the same size as a cell in downtown NYC. In fact, they generally aren't the same. That's related to why they previously prohibited (and how they now can technologically allow) cell phones on planes - there is a "femtocell" placed on the plane so that cell phones use their minimum power. The use of higher power levels can cause an overlap of a flying cell phone with multiple distant cells (using the same frequency) on the ground... and cause a whole chain of confusion (for a system effectively designed to be 2-dimensional).

You make it out like additional bandwidth (in the form of more parallel downloads) is not an economic problem. Additional bandwidth has a cost: More tower density (or at least more radio antenna if you can mount on existing buildings) using smaller cells, and that's absolutely an economic problem. (It's also a permitting problem, and in suburban areas likely a ditch-digging problem, both of which are likely worse than buying the equipment)

A few other notes:

You need to calculate 3X/Y, not X/Y, as 4G Cell towers will likely use Tri-sectored directional antenna. It's widely deployed in 3G environments, and is basically a requirement in any dense area (and also facilitates cellular 911 location when more accurate location isn't available)

There are also additional technologies that could be deployed that change the rules of spectrum usage. MIMO comes to mind. (The major problem of MIMO is much like other things in the cellular world, in that signal reflections (and interference in general) are somewhat of a royal pain and the resulting demand of processing power makes the basestations and phones infeasible to deploy at this time.)

Net is that smaller cell sizes and using additional technologies could absolutely reduce congestion, but the expense in doing so is enormous. It doesn't really change why the cap needs to exist at some level (they are up against wall, even if a financial loss wall rather than a physics wall), but we're nowhere near the fundamental laws of physics.

Have you ever tried to generate the view of what a proposed communications tower would look from your back yard? I have. While Google Earth was useful, It took me a lot of time modeling tree heights from pictures, GPS coordinates (of photo locations) and pacing.

I don't know if their algorithm/data takes in account height, but if it does, or if they add it (and it wouldn't be hard at this point), it would be ENORMOUSLY useful in my opinion. It gives resources to the population to get an accurate rendition that isn't limited to the two or three (very carefully chosen) views that have to be provided by the owning company in the permitting process.

Articles VI and VII of The Treaty disagree.

Which - for reference - is different from the law of the sea.

I agree with you there, but...

As maiden_taiwan so eloquently replies, that's a fine opinion, but the data don't agree with you.

Besides the research results, there are the sheer numbers. I can't remember the last time I saw someone eating or applying makeup while driving, but I swear every third bonehead in an SUV has a phone surgically implanted to the side of their head. When the car in front of me slows down to 10 MPH below the the speed limit, I can guarantee that he is dialing his phone rather than reaching for a Big Mac and heaven help anything in front of him while he's at it.

The students agreed to a certain limits when they enrolled in the school, and committed that they would NOT cheat. That should be sufficient to impose punishment if those limits are unreasonably breached.

The behavior that is being discouraged is not sharing work. The behavior that is being punished is unreasonably breaching an agreement. The real world also has that type of limit. Most companies have some form of code of conduct. Part of that is likely to avoid breaking laws.

As a specific example from the 'real world', look at what SAP did with Oracle's code. It would be a breach of section 1 of SAP's Employee Code of Conduct. Seems that creativity will result in something between $40 million and $1.6 billion in punishment. That's not creativity, it's illegal.

The fact that the limits may be at different points (one set by a student's contract with the school, the other set by law) doesn't mean they shouldn't be enforced as written.

Repeat after me: an alcoholic is not someone who drinks a lot of alcohol, an alcoholic is someone who can't control their behavior when they do drink. That's why there is no "safe" level of consumption for an alcoholic. And the general population of alcoholics is so diverse it is difficult to make sweeping general statements like "Most alcoholics tend to be thin". The truth is that alcoholics vary about as much as the general population in most factors with the exception of their inability to control their behavior with regard to alcohol consumption.

For anything that is safety critical, no way. Ever. There is a reason for the length and rigor of the education and training process for engineers and doctors. I do not want to cross a bridge built by a guy who read how to do it on some web site.

FYI, existing data plan users can login to wireless.att.com and view a histogram summary by month of their last 6 months of data usage. Look for "View Past Data Usage" in roughly the middle of the page under the "Usage & Recent Activity" section.

I just checked my own usage: in the last 6 months I have come pretty close to the cheap plan's 200 MB every month and I exceeded that limit last month at 240 MB. So, if I do switch to one of the new plans, it will probably be the 2 GB. I don't want to have to wonder about whether my data will just stop or have an extra $20 to pay for a month if I go over.

The rules are at the bottom of this section

These rules happen to be one of the main reasons I still have cable. The Stanley Cup playoffs are nationally televised, thus blacked out online.

Apple sold 300,000 iPads on the first day. Their market cap just passed Wal-Mart making them the 3rd most valuable company traded in US markets, behind only Microsoft and Exxon-Mobil. Regardless of particular views on the merits of the iPhone or the iPad, they are re-defining their markets and forcing competitive innovation just by their very existence. This is almost by definition a "great" period for a company.

I agree the GP is wrong that the Constitution is not relevant. In fact, I think it is still highly relevant to the issue

The thing is that copyright in its current form is a social contract - you are provided a temporary monopoly in exchange for producing that thing... with the underlying principle and power being "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;". (emphasis added)

If I am prevented from EVER copying an item (and remember that DRM has NO provision to provide an end to its protection), then I ask a more fundamental question: Given the social contract and the power provided to Congress in the Constitution, should an item that is protected with DRM actually be protected by copyright? If they want to take away the return of that item to the public domain, then shouldn't they have to give up some of the protection?

The fact is, the Constitution hasn't been fundamentally broken, but DRM changes the equation, because it impacts the underlying social contract in copyright. Congress and the courts haven't caught up to that tradeoff (which isn't a surprise, as the law generally lags technology by years or decades), and may not until something released solely with DRM enters the public domain (by which point the solution may be to legalize the breaking of such decades old [and computationally irrelevant] DRM)

Reading patents is a very bad idea. It opens you up to willful infringement and treble damages.

2000 is entirely plausible. Sonera installed the first set of mobile enabled vending machines selling Coca-Cola at Helsinki-Vantaa airport in 1997. Read the Background section at the bottom of this 2002 article

A few of the provisions (eliminating lifetime limits, prohibiting canceling people who get sick) start this year. Here's an interesting link that summarizes by year: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1914020220100319 Another fun one that happens rather immediately: a 10% tax on indoor tanning services that use ultraviolet lamps.

First off, spelling: LIAR, not LIER. Second, never ask yes-or-no questions over the phone. Always ask the user questions that force them to use their own words to describe things. I have gotten very good results by asking them to read things out loud. It seems to break through that blind spot that they have. More than once I have had a conversation go something like this:

Me: What version number does it show in the "About" section of the window?
Them: There isn't any "about" section.
Me: Are you sure?
Them (irate): Yes, there is nothing that says "about"!
Me: OK, I must have had you go to the wrong place. Let's make sure I do know where you are. Could you please read out loud the words in the top of the window that you are looking at right now?
Them (reading out loud): "About this application"... Oh, is that what you meant?
Me: Yes, I'm sorry I wasn't clear. Now could you please read out loud the number that is written just below the words that you read to me?