Comment Re:forgive me for possibly being redundant, but .. (Score 1) 263
True. But power out does not mean squat! Just because I have a million watt transmitter does not mean, based on this "7.08 Mbps per MHz per watt" or whatever it is, that all the receivers are going to be receiving data at 7.08 x 10^6 bps.
The key words in Shannon's Theorem are "signal to noise ratio".
The farther out you go from the transmitter, the worse the s/n ratio is going to be. Likewise a crappy antenna. Or crappy obstructions. Or crappy weather. Or a damn bird flying right between the transmitter and receiver. It doesn't matter how much power is being used - if any of the crappy things above happen, the s/n ratio is going to go down.
Instead of saying "7.08 Mbps per watt per MHz" or whatever it was, they need to instead say something like "7.08 Mbps per MHz with a S/N ratio of whatever-it-was."
The key words in Shannon's Theorem are "signal to noise ratio".
The farther out you go from the transmitter, the worse the s/n ratio is going to be. Likewise a crappy antenna. Or crappy obstructions. Or crappy weather. Or a damn bird flying right between the transmitter and receiver. It doesn't matter how much power is being used - if any of the crappy things above happen, the s/n ratio is going to go down.
Instead of saying "7.08 Mbps per watt per MHz" or whatever it was, they need to instead say something like "7.08 Mbps per MHz with a S/N ratio of whatever-it-was."