Hey Mike,
Well, since you went there…
I, quite frankly, am somewhat disappointed that the NWS hasn’t gotten away from
NOAAport sooner, either. Satellite broadcasting is NOT the future of continuous
monster data feeds; fiber is (though I applaud the high end 4G/low end 5G
speeds we’ll get from satellite Internet via smartphones over the next year).
I’ve been told that NOAAport can handle 100 mb/sec, but I always see it
consistently capped at 72 mb/sec. I have a friend who still has DSL service
(thank God he’s getting fiber at the end of this month), and he currently gets
50 mb/sec down, and 10 megs up, the fastest they can offer. NOAAport is
comparable to DSL, and AT&T yesterday got U.S. FCC approval to shut down DSL
and ALL copper-based services to all customers by 2029. Verizon, Frontier, et
al will likely follow suit.
Having said that, look at what large data sets from the NWS are already
doing…they’re being transferred reliably via fiber already! Level 2 radar,
MRMS, other surface-based data. Furthermore, GOES-18/19’s GRB feed, while still
satellite fed, is by nature a satellite feed, because, it’s from a satellite. 😃
But it couldn’t be sent over NOAAport…it’s too large of a feed. So, it gets a
separate feed via…FIBER.
The point is that I can get 1 GB up and down of enterprise/business fiber for
$150/month. And from wireless cellular hotspots with 5G, I can get 600 mb/sec
down and 80 mb/up for roughly the same price. The new 5.5G from T-Mobile, for
example, gets speeds of 1.2 gb/down, and nearly 100 GB up with a good signal.
Send the data via fiber or high-speed cellular Internet. It’s time.
Gilbert Sebenste
Meteorology Support Analyst
[cid:image001.png@01DC2244.67B86310]
From: Mike Zuranski <mike@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, September 9, 2025 9:12 PM
To: LDM-Users <ldm-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>; noaaport@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: Sebenste, Gilbert <sebensteg@xxxxxxx>
Subject: [External] Re: [ldm-users] FCC and the wireless industry pushing hard
to remove frequencies from satellite broadcasting
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Hi Gilbert and everyone,
While I haven't seen this one yet myself till now, this story has been playing
out for a little while as the article alludes to. I'm less concerned about
this for NOAAPort, we've seen that our 5G filters have done incredible jobs,
but you are right that there are concerns. But based on that article my bet is
any migrations with C-band allocations would _probably_ happen after NOAAPort
goes offline. Hopefully.
This might be a hot take, but I believe that NOAAPort should go away. It has
served us well for neigh on 30 years now but it's time to move on... past time,
really. We are now under two years to go before it gets decommissioned if that
schedule holds, but like you said we aren't hearing much about what's coming
next. On that I have some thoughts...
The timing here is pretty funny actually; I'm working on a presentation that
I'll give in about two weeks where I'll be discussing this exact topic, and
what I believe the future could look like post-SBN. Coincidentally that'll
also be on the first day for Unidata Fall Joint Committee meetings. I'm hoping
it will get live streamed, or at least recorded, and if that happens I'll share
the link(s) here; I think it's related enough.
What I'll say now though is while I do have some concerns, I am also VERY
excited for what will come next. I might be wrong but I think we're about to
see a modernization overhaul to our industry's data flow and visualization
techniques. We're still attached to NOAAPort at the hip so it's difficult for
us to see past it, but a lot has happened in recent years and decades with
massive advancements in computer tech, the internet and web app capabilities to
name a few. Other industries, biotech is a great example, have some impressive
tools to view their Big Data sets, and they are incredibly close to what we'd
want to use for our data.
Either way though, like Gilbert said, these are things we need to pay attention
to in the event timelines accelerate or plans change. Hopefully this will be
an agenda item for the Committee Meetings and we'll hear more from Unidata
leadership in the comings weeks with their thoughts on the subject.
Best,
-Mike
On Tue, Sep 9, 2025 at 8:27 PM Sebenste, Gilbert
<sebensteg@xxxxxxx<mailto:sebensteg@xxxxxxx>> wrote:
Good evening everyone,
I had been meaning to post this article, and I apologize for not doing so
sooner. I wanted to bring up something that we'll have to keep an eye on. As
many of you know, NOAAport is scheduled to go bye-bye in a few years as AWIPS
pulls it's data from online sources in the not-too-distant future, instead of
NOAAport.
But it could happen even sooner than that. The cellular/wireless industry is
pushing the FCC hard to get rid of the 3.8-4.4 ghZ band that television
networks, NOAAport and others use...to repurpose for 5G and 6G cellular use.
For it's part, the television industry is rejecting it, saying that they don't
have anywhere else to go; fiber is not as reliable for delivering video and
audio on a 24/7/365 environment where the broadcast simply must get through. I
agree with that point.
But the FCC wants them, and NOAAport, and everything else in those frequencies
to switch to fiber, possibly as early as next year.
The question is, what will replace NOAAport? That remains a mystery.
https://www.tvtechnology.com/news/airwaves-battle-brews-over-upper-c-band-at-fcc
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