Dewayne Hendricks is talking about wireless communications. “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”: Clarke’s third law. Wireless connectivity is the closest thing we have to magic.

Communications used to be limited to the speed of travel. Then Marconi happened at the turn of the 19th century. The Titanic disaster spurred government regulation because of interference in the help transmission. In 1934, the FCC was formed, locking us into a property model of communication.

Dewayne talks about his youth as a ham operator. Now with wifi, “everyone becomes a ham.” Unlike hams, you don’t have to go through the centralized bureaucracy to participate.

He points to problems with the property model. Basically, the needs of the market don’t reflect the band assignments made years ago. It’s discouraged innovation. Dewayne wanted to experiment in some frequency that couldn’t be freed up, so he was told to find a country with open access to spectrum. The crown prince of Tonga heard about a high-speed wireless net he’d set up. Dewayne’s company (Dandin Group) is now a common carrier in Tonga.

For an existence proof in the US, Dewayne installed on Indian reservations since they (presumably) have rights to their spectrum. And it worked.

Dewayne talks about the California Gigabit Initiative to bring gigabit access (upload and download) by 2010. He’s in charge of figuring how to bring wireless gigabit everywhere. “The problem will be political, not technical.” Nothing is holding it back but the command and control, property view of spectrum.

We need a new paradigm, Dewayne says. We need “Open Spectrum.” Cognitive radio can take advantage of it.

He ends by citing Tom Freeburg, Motorola’s chief futurist until he retired recently, talking about the real possibility of a Star Trek style transporter.

Categories: misc dw