Open the Spectrum
A white paper on Open Spectrum I wrote with a lot of help from Jock Gill, David Reed and Dewayne Hendricks, is now posted on the Web. Here’s how it begins:
We are not in the age of Information. We are not in the age of the Internet.
We are in the Age of Connection.
Being connected is at the heart of our democracy and our economy. The more and better those connections, the stronger are our government, businesses, science, culture, education…
Until now, our connectedness has depended on centralized control points that have been the gatekeepers of our economic and political networks. To speak to everyone, you had to be one of the few with access to a broadcast networks. To sell to everyone, you had to be one of the few with access to a global distribution channel. To achieve office, you had to be one of the few with access to corporate coffers and national media.
But we are on the verge of being able to connect to anyone and everyone, whenever and however we want. No gatekeepers. Ubiquitous connection. Connectedness that’s always there and always on.
This isn’t about getting more TV channels. Change the way we’re connected and you’ve changed everything, from the economy to governance. This is how fundamental transformation occurs.
Categories: Uncategorized dw
By using spectrum more efficiently, there’s more available for uses not yet accomodated. By managing use carefully, destructive interference can be avoided, not eliminated.
Too true that it took wi-fi to showcase demand. But the CB radio demand was huge too. All 40 CB radio signals combined use close to 50 times less spectrum than a single 802.11b channel.
Ultra wideband technology is new and untested. It has shown promise in multiple applications. Before we know if it’s bandwidth brilliance or silicon snake oil we should study it a bit more. Especially if it will, in fact, interfere with GPS systems.
Spectrum is a public resource: it is ours. We should not sqaunder it, but manage it for the collective good.