3G Is A Dog, And Other Truths

naylorjs writes: "This is an interesting article from the BBC about the technological future, in particular broadband and wireless. What makes it more interesting is the comments about nation states and such like. A certain amount of lateral thinking in use here, something that we don't see enough of in the technology field. IMHO."

Comments

The government doesn't like 3G

[CmdrTroll]

There are many factors that have contributed to the delays surrounding 3G availability. Indeed, one needs to look no farther than the FCC spectrum allocation mess and the technological issues to see why the rollout hasn't happened yet. However there are some very real reasons under the surface that help explain why the Federal government doesn't want 3G to exist at all. For instance:

• 3G will start a new wave of competition amongst the major phone companies. If Sprint offers 3G services and SBC doesn't, Sprint's market share will increase, so SBC and the other competitors need to keep up. Now take a look at the money flowing to powerful people in Washington and see who the top contributors are - BellSouth and SBC are pretty high up there. It is not in their best interest to see 3G happen and they are paying off Congressmen left and right to make sure it doesn't happen (in this lifetime at least).
• Law enforcement regards 3G as a nightmare. Think about it - cell phones that have enough bandwidth to transmit encrypted datastreams between phones. And not the cheesy 40-bit breakable encryption that they use on current PCS systems, either. They're worried about people loading 128 bit Blowfish or IDEA encoders onto their phones and using them to communicate securely. Roving wiretaps are useless if all you can gather from them is white noise. No wiretaps == no control, and law enforcement exists to control.
• If 3G service is commoditized (think "Tracfone") and potentially anonymous, what's to keep criminals, ACLU members and privacy nuts, and WTO protestors from using disposable phones to communicate securely? By the time they traced one phone, the subject will have moved onto another one. Anonymous voice services are "bad enough" for The Man, but anonymous data services will wrestle even more control away from authority.
• 3G service is difficult to disrupt when making a covert search of somebody's apartment or office. If FBI agents can't knock all of your computers off the network, you can see everything they do if you have a few $30 webcams planted around the joint. The FBI wants you to have a broadband service that they can monitor, but disconnect at will as well (preferably by cutting a cable). It is a known fact that on most covert searches (such as the Scarfo search) the FBI cuts off communication lines prior to the search. 3G or Ricochet is difficult to work with on their end, and their excuse for opposing it is that it will give the Scarfos of the world a leg up on law enforcement.

-CT

Credibility? Bitch, please!

[szcx]

Nicholas Negroponte is the same guy who predicted that there would be $1 trillion in e-commerce by 2000, and that micropayments will "change consumer behavior enormously". According to Nostraponte, site visitors have no problem whatsoever in paying a few cents for every article they read.

The guy is a pundit dressed in academic clothing, nothing more.