Abstract - Spatial Analysis and Information Systems for Wireless Digital TV

Track: Telecommunications

Michelle Cobb
Pacific Bell Video Services
5000 Executive Parkway Suite 500
San Ramon, CA 94583

Telephone: 510-806-5972
Fax: 510-275-1742
E-mail: mlcobb@pbvs.com

Spatial Analysis and Information Systems for Wireless Digital TV

With the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Pacific Bell Video Services (PBVS) has begun the launch of a new service: wireless, digital video service. PBVS, a Southwestern Bell Communications (SBC) company, is deploying multichannel, multipoint distribution service (MMDS) in Southern California during the Spring of 1997. PBVS Digital TV will offer 80 off-air and satellite channels, 40 near video on demand (NVOD) channels and 31 music channels - all delivered via a digital, wireless network. In preparation, a database of prospective customers has been designed to help PBVS maintain the Pacific Bell reputation for excellent customer service. When a customer calls PBVS to sign up for their new video service, a customer care agent (CCA) will access a pre-populated database to determine if the customer's address is serviceable. To determine which addresses within the service area of each transmitter are serviceable, an integrated system, combining propagation modeling (Signal 3.5 - EDX Engineering, Inc.), geographic information systems (ArcInfo and ArcView GIS - Esri, Inc.) and RDBMS (Oracle Corporation), was developed to provide the business the information and tools required to launch this new product. Business planning and marketing teams depend on results from the spatial analysis and information system (SAIS) to develop deployment plans, and determine the number of prospective customers that are within the service area and the corresponding demographics. Developing such a system, which is inherently the core of both overall business planning and daily operations, tends to illuminate issues regarding data integrity. Examples of this issue are the spatial and aspatial accuracy of the street layer, completeness and accuracy of the prospective address layer, and resolution of the terrain database with which the signal coverage layer is modeled. To attempt to quantify the errors within these data layers, field data collection tools are being designed and implemented to create a feedback loop from the field to the SAIS. If customer locations were to be accurately measured by a GPS (Global Positioning System), then not only the signal coverage layer but also the street/address layer can be verified and continually improved. As a partial resolution, hand-held GPS units equipped with real-time differential correction units (DCI) are used by the field technicians to measure the location of installations which are passed back to the customer database along with the measured signal levels. The other portion of the solution is a mass data collection tool (MDCT) which is being developed by the GIS, Operations, and Engineering teams to improve the accuracy and efficiency of field survey data. The MDCT will consist of a ruggedized laptop, Trimble Gold Card, and a Map Objects (Esri) application which integrates a data collection form with the visual spatial data. With this feedback loop in place, the anticipated result is continual improvement of the crucial data layers which help to guide the daily success of the business.