{"id":382,"date":"2010-05-21T21:50:08","date_gmt":"2010-05-22T01:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/?p=382"},"modified":"2011-07-29T23:01:50","modified_gmt":"2011-07-30T03:01:50","slug":"smart-radios-dumb-institutions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/archives\/382","title":{"rendered":"Smart Radios, Dumb Institutions"},"content":{"rendered":"

(or: The Wonderful World of the Electromagnetic Spectrum<\/em>)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

(click to go to the podcast)<\/em><\/p>\n

“It sounds like the most boring topic in existence…” \u00a0producer Dan Jones playfully used this quote (from me) to lead this week’s Radio Berkman podcast. \u00a0Our topic is the future of the electromagnetic spectrum. \u00a0David Weinberger skillfully interviews me about wireless. \u00a0As you may have noticed as you squint at this blog post on your smartphone, the future of the Internet is wireless<\/strong>. \u00a0My goal in the conversation was to try to talk about some of the most exciting and revolutionary ideas in wireless today without acronyms and jargon. \u00a0Hopefully I can prove it is not the most boring topic in existence.<\/p>\n

Here’s a link to the audio (downloadable and playable from the browser): http:\/\/cyber.law.harvard.edu\/node\/6109<\/a> (~42 minutes)<\/p>\n

Below I’ve typed up a summary of the big points in the podcast.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A diagram from experimental License 5XD, granted in 1920
\nto the New Mexico College of Mechanical and Agricultural Arts
\n<\/em>(click to enlarge)<\/p>\n

To my mind, the big points in our conversation are these nine paragraphs:<\/p>\n

I try to explain what the “electromagnetic spectrum<\/strong>” is in layman’s terms, by reference to the French National Assembly and comparing the term to “the political spectrum.”<\/p>\n

A discussion of how the topic of radio appears to be very technical, but in fact many or even most of the important decisions about it are social and political. \u00a0We think that the future of wireless technology is all about improvements in technology — when in fact the biggest obstacles to positive change in our wireless communication systems are entrenched interests<\/strong>, laws, policies, and institutions. \u00a0Technical jargon is a way to keep us out of vital conversations<\/strong> by making them seem arcane, boring, and specialist.<\/p>\n

As an example, I talk about how “channels<\/strong>” seem like an important feature of radio technology, when in fact they are a human superposition that now locks us into 100-year-old ways of thinking about wireless. \u00a0New wireless technologies also suggest a re-imagining of the spectrum itself and how we use it (one example I talk about is open spectrum<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

I say that wireless is now experiencing a crisis of metaphor<\/strong>. \u00a0Because we don’t personally experience electromagnetism (very much) metaphor is a crucial tool that we use to reason about how radio works and how it ought to work, particularly in venues where policy discussion of wireless occurs. \u00a0We used to use the metaphor of water. \u00a0We also have historically used roads, rails, land, gears (!), color, and clouds. \u00a0New developments in wireless (e.g., cognitive radio) don’t mesh well with our old metaphors and thus we are struggling. \u00a0It may be that the new metaphor for wireless is The Internet<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

I talk about how Wi-Fi may be a small example of how we might think about all wireless systems in the future (taking a page from Kevin Werbach). \u00a0Anyone can buy a Wi-Fi access point without permission, and most users never have to think about what “channel” they are on when they use Wi-Fi. \u00a0Newer Wi-Fi access points also do a simple version of smart frequency selection to avoid interference. \u00a0What if everything wireless looked like this?<\/strong> This would involve embedding a lot more intelligence in our devices.<\/p>\n

Letting go of channels and letting go of the requirement that broadcasters obtain government permission in advance to use a channel (that is, licenses<\/strong>) is scary for those who control channels now. \u00a0But it’s also scary for people who worry that without licensing there will be bedlam<\/strong> and interference as everyone tries to use the same channels at the same time. \u00a0I talk about how we can learn from the (unlicensed) experience of Wi-Fi to prevent this kind of problem.<\/p>\n

I argue that wireless use is actually predictable without licensing transmitters in advance<\/strong>. \u00a0I use an analogy with a “Guess Your Weight” game at a carnival and I propose to “Guess Your Wi-Fi.” \u00a0Here is a Web site based on the research I discuss where you can play the “Guess Your Wi-Fi” experiment I am talking about, and learn more about this topic: http:\/\/pact.uiuc.edu\/red\/<\/a><\/p>\n

I observe that in early radio\u00a0everyone was expected to know everything<\/strong> about the technical details of radio. \u00a0(You built your own radio set or you didn’t have one.) \u00a0As wireless commercialized, the only thing the users needed to know was how to change the channel on the TV. \u00a0Now we’re moving back toward early radio again in that more and more information and technical details are being foisted onto the consumer. \u00a0(Just look around the aisles at Best Buy at the cordless phones, or try to buy a USB stick for your laptop that gives you access to the cellular network.) \u00a0This is a bad trend. \u00a0Open spectrum doesn’t need to mean that the user does everything on their own! \u00a0Everyone doesn’t need to be their own band manager.<\/p>\n

I talk about the prospects for future devices that share the electromagnetic spectrum in new ways. \u00a0I argue that future protocols and regulations need to encapsulate new kinds of rules about polite sharing in order to ensure that a new system like this works. \u00a0However, there’s a trade-off between highly regulated nice and polite smart radios that work well together<\/strong> and the speed of innovation in smart radios<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

As always, your comments are welcome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(or: The Wonderful World of the Electromagnetic Spectrum) (click to go to the podcast) “It sounds like the most boring topic in existence…” \u00a0producer Dan Jones playfully used this quote (from me) to lead this week’s Radio Berkman podcast. \u00a0Our topic is the future of the electromagnetic spectrum. \u00a0David Weinberger skillfully interviews me about wireless. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2132,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1321],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4M7Bm-6a","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2132"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=382"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":630,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382\/revisions\/630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}