A compelling paper. It argues for an "open spectrum" gov't policy for wireless, it also does a very good job of explaining the current state of the wireless market, how it got that way, why WiFi is so promising, and how these things could be so different if they were open.
http://www.newamerica.net/Download_Docs/pdfs/Pub_File_1001_1.PDF "The New America Foundation has just released an excellent white paper on open spectrum authored by Kevin Werbach entitled Open Spectrum: The New Wireless Paradigm Open spectrum is neither science fiction nor wishful thinking about human nature. Its ideas are rooted in well-established engineering techniques and mainstream economics, and its viability has been proven in mass-market implementations involving millions of users. It is time to question our long-held assumptions, and explore new policy approaches that could generate tremendous benefits for the American people... We are living under a faulty set of assumptions about spectrum. Licensing may have been the only viable approach in the 1920s, but it certainly isn�t in the first years of the 21st century. We take it for granted that companies must pay for exclusive rights to spectrum, and that once they do, they must invest in significant infrastructure buildout to deliver services. We also take for granted a pervasive level of regulation on how spectrum is used, which would be intolerable for any other medium so connected to speech. We assume that market forces, if introduced into the wireless world at all, must be applied to choices among monopolists rather than free competition. We make these assumptions because we can�t imagine the world being otherwise. Open spectrum technologies forces us to rethink all of our assumptions about wireless communication. By making more efficient use of the spectrum we have, it can effectively remove the capacity constraints that limit current wireless voice and data services. By opening up space for innovation, it could lead to the development of new applications and services. It could provide an alternative pipe into the home for broadband connectivity. And it could allow many more speakers access to the public resource of the airwaves. ...." __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos & More http://faith.yahoo.com -- NYCwireless - http://www.nycwireless.net/ Un/Subscribe: http://lists.nycwireless.net/mailman/listinfo/nycwireless/ Archives: http://lists.nycwireless.net/pipermail/nycwireless/
