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Google Reveals Wireless Vision — Open Networks
Anti-Globalism writes with this excerpt from CNet:
"Google's vision of tomorrow's wireless network is in stark contrast to how wireless operators do business today, setting the two sides on a possible collision course. Earlier this week, the search giant filed a patent application with the US Patent Office describing its vision of an open wireless network where smartphones aren't tied to any single cell phone network. In Google's open wireless world, phones and other wireless devices would search for the strongest, fastest connection at the most competitive price. Essentially, wireless operators' networks would be reduced to 'dumb pipes.'"
The full patent application is available as well. Google founder Larry Page recently asked the FCC to free up portions of the broadcast spectrum for this purpose.
And the first thing they do after connecting, is of course, load up Google! I'm sure none of this surprises anyone.
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did they set up an organization or something ? already buying out lawmakers ? where do i donate ?
im serious. there is no other way that people's will can be legislated, in current u.s. legal system. you have to BUY the laws.
so tell me where do we donate. dont say EFF, im already donating there.
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I sincerely hope this isn't all that's in the patent. I wrote about this model for wireless network access about a year ago, and when I was researching the article I came across people with the same idea ten years earlier, who cited even earlier people.
The big step needed to make it happen is to prevent network operators from offering services. When the state licenses them the bandwidth, it should be on the understanding that they only operate the network, nothing else. Otherwise you get serious problems with competition. It is much cheaper for me to make a phone call than a VoIP call from my mobile phone, even though it's cheaper for the operator to route the VoIP call, because it's in their interests to charge more for bandwidth that can be used for competing services. If the network only provided bandwidth, as my ISP does, then it would be in their interests to allow as many services as possible to flourish, so they could charge me more for usage.
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Essentially, wireless operators' networks would be reduced to 'dumb tubes.'
There, fixed that for you.
Failure to follow this advice may result in non-deterministic behavior.
It's a method of finding a connection.
A method of initiating a telecommunication session for a communication device include submitting to one or more telecommunication carriers a proposal for a telecommunication session, receiving from at least one of the one or more of telecommunication carriers a bid to carry the telecommunications session, and automatically selecting one of the telecommunications carriers from the carriers submitting a bid, and initiating the telecommunication session through the selected telecommunication carrier.
Wireless companies bid billions for these dumb pipes. What collision course? Access denied. End of collision!
When I hear about visions these days I am scared. Microsoft has visions and patents too. But thats all they have. Google seems to be becoming the next Microsoft.
Heroes die once, cowards live longer.
There seem to be some set of natural situations where monopolies essentially must exist due to physical constraints: frequency bands, roads, cable/electric, etc. But it seems to be that a logical principle is that whenever one of these monopolies must be assigned, this is one case where government intervention is warranted -- ensuring that services are decoupled/debundled to the maximum extent reasonable.
For example, roads are a monopoly assigned by local governments to be built by various contractors, but it'd be crazy to imagine that only buildings built by said contractors would be allowed to lie along that road.
I'm usually very against government intervention/regulation, but when these natural monopoly situations occur, that seems to be the point for some reasonable involvement.
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The FCC has been the culprit in resisting the growth of communications in the U.S. Because they are so slow to react to what consumers demand, we're sitting around STILL using bandwidth for antiquated technologies such as broadcast television and radio.
For over a decade, research into software-based radios has continued at an amazing pace. Frequency hopping, which allows the software radios to discover the best frequency to utilize at a given moment, allows the transmission tower and transceiving device to negotiate noise, power needs and transmission speeds almost real time.
I find it crazy that people think we still need to designate frequencies for everything. One-way transmissions (radio, TV) use a ton of space that is seeing demand drop, significantly.
Can you imagine the amount of bandwidth that would be available if the FCC would just step back and let the consumer-producer market find the most efficient solution for wireless data needs? I believe we have a decent amount of proof that unlicensed bandwidth works well: WiFi, cordless phones, and a myriad of other technologies that work well together, but haven't had the chance to be pushed to the limit due to the limited amount of unlicensed bandwidth.
Google is right in wanting there to be a relatively open source process for utilizing available frequencies. I foresee an amazing leap in connectivity, a huge drop is pricing, and a roll out of services across the country that would leapfrog the U.S. to the head of the game again. If only the FCC would step back from their role of monopoly-regulator and possibly only be the organization that lays down the law against individuals or companies who are corrupting the open bandwidth with frequency noise or other clutter. As an anarcho-capitalist, I of course abhor the idea of the FCC doing anything, but I would accept them if they just monitored for those introducing chaos into the unlicensed spectrum if it was opened to an even larger set of frequencies.
Video broadcasts, audio broadcasts, two way communications and more could all share this open spectrum beautifully, with less power usage and more speed available based on the needs of each device at any given moment.
communications networks, like other societal infrastructure, are natural monopolies. that's the way in which they function the most efficiently.
i know a lot of people seem to think that competition and consumer choice are the end and the ultimate for everything from breakfast cereal to health care. but that's just not true for things like wireless networks. if you take the same amount of resources as multiple competing (redundant) networks and put them all into a single network infrastructure, you would have better connectivity, network performance, and probably network capacity as well.
so the best model would probably be to set up municipal wi-fi networks using the white space spectrum and simply have the telecoms provide a routing service. it would still allow cellphone users to have handsets not tied to any particular carrier, but rather the handset would connect to the local wi-fi access point and then select from the fastest VoIP service (like Skype) for each call.
i appreciate Google's proposal, which actually offers a compromise between municipal wi-fi and the current subscription model, but i just don't see the telecoms giving up their tight grip on wireless communication. they would lose their lucrative data plans which charge extortionate rates for basic internet access. if the telecoms were smart, they would work with google on realizing a these commercial open wireless networks, otherwise when the public/consumers finally get fed up with their abuse of tax-subsidized infrastructure, they'll simply adopt municipal wi-fi and create a public wireless infrastructure to replace closed telephone networks.
If someone sends an internet to my cellphone I'm going to duck.
Why is this patentable? People in Europe routinely use cell phones with multiple connectivity options. There are WiFi/3G phones and dual SIM card phones. You can use wireless carriers, callbacks, long distance dial-in, or VoIP over WiFi or 3G. And phones have some logic to pick cheaper combinations. If you really push it, you can manage to get two SIM cards and WiFi into the same phone.
Google is officially my preferred evil overlord.
factor 966971: 966971
For those who don't know, Carterfone(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carterfone) was an extremely important 1968 FCC decision that obsoleted the phone company model of requiring you to lease a device from them to connect to their networks. The passing of this decision is what gives landline users to this day the freedom to connect whatever device they want to their landline.
Skype petitioned the FCC in 2007 arguing (rightfully so) that the FCC should make the Carterfone rules apply to wireless networks. The FCC chairman Kevin Martin (a member of the business-friendly/consumer-un-friendly Bush Administration) turned it down last year, with a very weak argument basically saying, "Such a move would be premature". Obviously, that translates to, "The wireless companies would like to protect their business model and we don't want to piss them off".
We can fully expect the wireless companies to fight tooth-and-nail against any promotion of truly open networks by companies like Google.
I agree. Communication technology becoming common to every day living. It's about time we turn it into something that governments service like the sewers, plumbing, and roads
Wireless vision. Wow. What will Google think of next? Wireless audio? Wireless scent?
The future is now!
I disagree. Unlike roads, wireless communications networks are not physically mutually exclusive: multiple networks can operate in the same physical space. Unlike phone and sewage lines, it's easy to redistribute capacity among individual consumers: an individual doesn't have just one line that must be operated by one company.
Wireless communications are perfect for competition, because all an operator needs to do is rent some frequencies, set up a tower, and make sure it can negotiate with phones and route traffic to the rest of the phone network.
There are two problems: fraud and privacy. Fraud might be solvable, and I sure as hell don't trust AT&T or Verizon privacy-wise, so how could things get worse on that front?
In the end telcos will be just a tube like company, similar to the light, gas and electricity utilities. The limits existing today are completely artificial.
Google Reveals Wireless Vision
Wow, did anyone else read the title to mean Google had developed a way to make human eyeballs wireless?
Damn, I need more coffee.
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
I agree. Communication technology becoming common to every day living. It's about time we turn it into something that governments service like the sewers, plumbing, and roads
You want the internet service to be government controlled?
I don't really like that idea.
I don't want to have 15 wires strung to my house, I don't want to have companies pirating each other's spectrum in different areas of the country.
It's a limited resource that many people want to use... you can't just say "Go for it" in those cases, because you get what's known as a tragedy of the commons.
The government should not be controlling internet service. They should be regulating how it's provided, forcing it to be open and available. And that's it. Nothing about the content, just the delivery.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
It's great that there's finally someone big enough, and with enough money to challenge the telco's. I bet they are going nuts at the thought of having to compete fairly based only on price, value and features. Whatever you might think of Google, they sure aren't afraid to take on the status quo and the 900 lb. gorillas when it suits them. I don't really care what Google's profit motives are here, if they can force this type of change and competition in a market famous for it's anti-customer behaviour and draconian contracts, then good for them.
Meanwhile, I bet the telecoms are getting out their lawyers and pulling all the strings on their bought politicians to stop this. I wonder how long until someone tags something on a bill that would outlaw this?
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Frequencies are a limited resource, though. You can't use the entire wireless spectrum because there are too many services that run on it. Not to mention people's personal networks (2.4GHz and so on). You end up having a very small slice of spectrum available for network transmission, and whoever has the strongest towers or deepest pockets can override everyone else. It needs regulation because it's a scarce resource.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Wow... You're right. Ick!
I thought that this submission was a little strange coming from them, as their recent submissions on the subject have been decidedly anti-NN astroturf pieces. Maybe they were expecting us to get mad about the patent thing?
I've been annoyed before with their inanity, but I thought they were just gold-standard-libertarian-fundamentalists. I had no idea that they're actually stoking-hatred-of-immigrants-traditionalist-nazis.
Should a company be allowed to patent a mode of operation that some cell phones already do?
no
Regulation doesn't have to mean monopoly. Right now, small providers get squeezed out because everybody wants a cheap cell contract that works everywhere. The more spectrum you control in more places, the better and cheaper service you can provide, thus supporting your brand and gaining more national market share.
If local wireless coverage is only a simple service sold as a commodity, with no consumer-visible branding, then (hopefully) the economic value of the spectrum will depend on how efficiently the service provider can use it. The highest bidder for spectrum will tend to be the most efficient service provider, whether it's AT&T or Mom and Pop.
Of course, QoS will have to be part of the deal negotiated by your phone on your behalf, to prevent a race to the bottom in terms of quality.
well, think about it this way. imagine you're just looking at the wireless infrastructure for California, and it's being rolled out by commercial telecoms without any central planning.
major urban areas like Los Angeles, San Jose, Sacramento, San Francisco, etc. would be the most profitable local markets, so those places would end up being serviced by all of the service providers. but people living up in the mountains, in more rural areas, or in small towns like those that sit right along Highway 395, etc. would get no coverage at all. i mean, who wants to spend the money to bring wireless access to areas with marginal returns?
as bandwidth usage goes up, and wireless infrastructure becomes more integrated into our society, we will also need to look at using our full radio spectrum for wireless networking. at that point maximizing efficiency will be a major issue. and that just isn't achievable with all the carriers competing for the same markets and without any kind of central planning.
Obviously a great deal of regulation and planning would be required to set up the market. What pieces of spectrum are sold, and what limitations are the winning bidders required to abide by, in terms of what services they offer?
In areas where there is a need for coverage, but no profitable way to provide it, let government sweeten the deal enough to make it profitable. As long as the spectrum auctions are open and competitive, there shouldn't be any way for a company to get sweetheart contracts and milk the taxpayers.
Having local government subsidize wireless service in places where it's unprofitable would stop the de facto welfare system whereby rural cell coverage is funded by urban subscribers, but if we really want such a welfare system, we can vote on it ;-)
I agree. Communication technology becoming common to every day living. It's about time we turn it into something that governments service like the sewers, plumbing, and roads
I don't care if the government handles the 'data' going through my plumbing, or the 'data' going through the highway. I *do* care about my communications privacy though.
There's no place like
This patent **application** was filed on March 19, 2007; it was just **published** on the 25th. At the present rate, it will be evaluated by USPTO in late 2009 or 2010.
Basically, a reverse auction which is already in use in other formats. Priceline.com comes to mind.
Implementing this "method" should be interesting if there are multiple carriers in your area. Do you set a price per session you are willing to pay on your phone and then the phone automatically connects to the first carrier that drops to your acceptable price? What if your price is too low? Do you get a denial of service? How long does it take for this negotiation to take place?
I don't see how this works unless the phone just automatically accepts the lowest "bid" received from the carriers. Then, if the competition is sparse or nonexistent, you either pay what they want or do without. If there are multiple carriers that offer the same bid, how does your phone "choose" which one it accepts??
Not sure how this one will shake out.
If I buy a phone and a contract with say ATT, and I'm in a location in which Verizon is the strongest signal. How does Verizon get compensated for this? Are the expected to set up peering agreements with ATT or do they charge ATT for the right to allow ATT contracted phones to attach to Verizon's network?
You talk, as if there were a difference between corporations and a government.
Nowadays the government is just a club for the feudalistic corporations, to find compromises on their differences for nationwide issues.
The rest is a facade.
Why else would bribing (aka. lobbying) not be a federal "go directly to the pound-me-in-the-ass-prison" crime?
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
I want the wires brought to my house to be maintained by the _local_ government. They don't have to provide the services on those wires, that can be done by any company. We already have government granted local monopolies like Comcast, and AT&T. I think a local city government would provide a better quality of service.