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  • From: tom poe <tompoe AT renonevada.net>
  • To: "DMCA Discuss" <dmca_discuss AT lists.microshaft.org>
  • Cc: "CommStudios" <community_studios AT lists.ibiblio.org>, "Reno_Perl_Group" <renotahoe-pm AT pm.org>
  • Subject: [Community_studios] Re: [DMCA_Discuss] 2002: Imagine: world w ith unlimited airwaves
  • Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 12:12:29 -0700

Hi: That was nice. Imagine, then, speech->text mixed in with that concept,
eh?

If Hollywood was upset before, wait'll this hits 'em!
Thanks,
Tom



On Monday 20 May 2002 11:26, James S. Huggins \(DMCA Discuss\) wrote:
> Because of all our discussion, including particularly our discussion of
> "scarcity", this article from Dan Gillmor seemed particularly appropriate.
>
> James S. Huggins
>
>
>
>
>
>
> S I L I C O N V A L L E Y . C O M
> http://www.siliconvalley.com/
>
> DAN GILLMOR ON TECHNOLOGY
> Monday May 20, 2002
>
>
> E-mail Dan at dgillmor AT sjmercury.com
> _____________________________
>
>
>
> Imagine: world with unlimited airwaves
>
> It's long been an article of faith that the airwaves are a
> scarce resource. On this notion rides the existence
> of the Federal Communications Commission, which
> regulates the airwaves, not to mention the ownership
> of great swaths of the spectrum by a variety of public
> and private interests.
>
> What if the scarcity turns out to be an artifact of history
> and outmoded technology? That's not a new thought,
> but it's back on the table for discussion in tech and policy
> circles. If scarcity can be overcome, the implications are
> both exciting and disruptive -- a cornucopia of communications
> that foreshadows woes for some of our biggest
> telecommunications companies. Late last month,
> David P. Reed gave a provocative talk to the Federal
> Communications Commission's Technological
> Advisory Council. He told the group of experts,
> in effect, that the FCC's fundamental mission is
> flawed, maybe obsolete.
>
> Reed is no newcomer to the tech scene. He holds a
> Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
> where he taught computer science and headed the Laboratory
> for Computer Science's Computer Systems Structure Group.
> He was chief scientist at Lotus Development and Software
> Arts, two of the pioneering software companies, and worked
> at the now-closed Interval Research, the Paul Allen-funded
> think tank in Palo Alto. Lately he's been a consultant,
> entrepreneur and researcher.
>
> He's been involved in Internet technical details for several decades,
> and even has a ``law'' named after him. ``Reed's Law'' isn't as
> famous as Moore's Law, but it's a big one. The importance of
> the Internet, under Reed's Law, is at least as much about the
> formation of groups that communicate and collaborate as
> about person-to-person contact.
>
> In a panel discussion and interview last week at the O'Reilly
> Emerging Technology Conference in Santa Clara, Reed put
> in plain English some of the concepts he discussed at the
> FCC and which he has put online at his Web site
> (www.reed.com/dpr.html). Simply put, he said, we have to
> start looking at spectrum as an almost limitless commodity,
> not a scarce one.
>
> The current regulatory regime that allocates spectrum ``is a
> legal metaphor that does not correspond to physical reality,''
> he said.
>
> Why not? First, he said, the notion of interference has more
> to do with the equipment we use to send and receive
> signals than with the physics of radio waves.
>
> ``Radio waves pass through each other,'' Reed said.
> ``They do not damage each other.''
>
> In the early days of radio, the gear could easily be
> confused by overlapping signals. But we can now make
> devices that can sort out the traffic.
>
> The second way that reality defies the old logic is what
> happens when you add wireless devices to networks.
> I won't go into the details of Reed's argument, which you
> can find on his site, but he contends that you end up with
> more capacity -- the ability to move bits of data around
> -- than when you started.
>
> ``In principle, the capacity of a certain bandwidth in a certain
> physical space increases with the number of transceivers in
> a given space,'' he said. Yet the FCC regulates the airwaves
> as if the capacity was a fixed amount.
>
> Yes, he said, this is counter-intuitive. And, to be sure, there
> are experts who disagree with him.
>
> But if he and others in his camp are right, we have a lot of
> work ahead to fix a hopelessly broken regulatory system.
> And if that happens, the sky is literally the limit for future
> communications -- but the consequences for some of the
> most powerful companies in our economy may be grim.
>
> Reed wants the FCC to open up some spectrum for these more
> open wireless networks, giving entrepreneurs a new public space
> in which to innovate and create value for the rest of us. He's not
> sure who'll make money in this space, but surely equipment
> manufacturers and other companies, especially software
> companies, will be in the middle of a wave of innovation.
>
> Software is a key, perhaps the key, to the future Reed envisions.
> Most radio-like devices using today's spectrum -- radios, televisions,
> mobile phones and the like -- are based on the old way of doing
> things, constrained by hardware to receive and transmit signals
> in specific ways and in specific places of the airwaves.
>
> To get the capacity multiplier effect, he said, we need devices
> with fairly generic but powerful hardware components. ``Software
> defined radios'' will be vastly more adaptable, and useful, than their
> old-fashioned cousins, according to Reed and others who are
> promoting the concept. The military has been using these devices,
> also called ``agile radio,'' for some time; civilian availability is
> getting closer as costs come down.
>
> Who stands to lose? Apart from regulators whose jobs might be
> largely unnecessary, consider the potential plight of the phone
> companies. Their business model is based on economics that
> Reed's notions, should they become reality in the marketplace,
> would shred.
>
> Getting from here to there is a huge, perhaps insurmountable task
> given the business interests that would object to changes in the
> rules. Some regulation would still be necessary in at least some
> areas, no doubt.
>
> Imagining this new world has another attraction. It conjures a
> boost for a civil liberty we take for granted in America but
> which has been dampened under the current regulatory scheme.
>
> I'm talking about free speech. Regulation of the airwaves has
> specifically included curbs on speech, such as the FCC's
> commands to the nation's TV and radio broadcasters
> about what may or may not be said on the air.
>
> Restrictions on speech have been justified under the idea
> that the spectrum is a public and limited resource. If that
> is not true, there's no reason to regulate speech in this way.
> Maybe, someday, the First Amendment will mean something
> when people broadcast their views, not just when they put
> them on paper or on the Internet.
>
> The worst direction for the FCC to move right now, Reed said,
> is to keep giving or auctioning spectrum to ``monopoly owners''
> that won't use it efficiently. A new kind of open space is all
> about the public good, he said, and there's a fine analogy in
> recent history.
>
> ``We need to do for spectrum,'' he said, ``what the
> Internet did for the network.''
>
>
>
> Dan Gillmor's column appears each Sunday, Wednesday and
> Saturday. Visit Dan's online column, eJournal at
> http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/business/columnists/dan_gill
>m or/ejournal/
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
>
>
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  • [Community_studios] Re: [DMCA_Discuss] 2002: Imagine: world w ith unlimited airwaves, tom poe, 05/20/2002

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