Wireless Standards and Applications: Industrial Strategies and Government Policy
[PDF 597Kb]

Peter Cowhey (UCSD) and Jonathan Aronson (USC)

This paper explores the network architecture of future and the pattern of innovation tied to it. It argues that there is a struggle underway among regions and industry segments to control the value-added for the next generation of ICT architecture Five Dimensions of the unfolding space are assessed: (1) cost per bit of applications; (2) the speed of the broadband network; (3) which type of communications will dominate – voice or data, human or machine-to-machine; (4) who will be the innovation leaders; (5) how convergent will the networks of the future be. Various dimensions of policy are investigated related to innovation policy, competition policy, and international coordination. The paper compares the US fragmented innovation model, the EU model of elevating the application while commoditizing the platform, and the more interventionist models of the Northeast Asia troika of China , Korea , and Japan . The paper concludes that no single model for 4G is likely to emerge. Driven by platform battles, the US will have the least integrated broadband approach. The EU will rely on coordinated innovation a competitive EU market marked by strong lead users in the “public” sector. The northeast Asian troika will likely be depend on low-priced, highspeed networking to nurture export products while building on the special strengths of their mass consumer markets.

IP³: Intellectual Property, Information Policy and The Devolutionary Power of Internet Protocol
[PDF - 302k]

Jonathan Taplin (USC)

Traditional notions of U.S. dominance of knowledge-based industries have rested on the assumption that the existing rules for intellectual property enforced in the U.S. will survive in an era of Information Globalization. This paper argues that there is a beginning of a global pushback towards U.S. intellectual property regimes and that there is no a priori reason that China or other new players in the knowledge industries will adopt the U.S. formulated rules. Furthermore, the paper argues that the growth of Internet Protocol based broadband networks may bring forth a new era of on-demand media that could radically change the face of the current broadcast-centric media system, leading to a new set of rules for information policy.

Spectrum licensing and spectrum commons—
where to draw the line
[PDF 223Kb]

Martin Cave (University of Warwick)

In this paper, we consider the role of unlicensed spectrum and in particular address the question as to how to determine whether there should be more or less unlicensed spectrum. We start with an economic analysis of the situation which suggests that spectrum should be unlicensed where there is little probability of congestion. We then note that despite arguments about the ability of “spectrum commons” to alleviate congestion, congestion across key parts of the spectrum is likely for the foreseeable future. But congestion is unlikely where short range communications are used and can be made less likely by regulatory insistence on eg politeness protocols. This leads us to conclude that there should be a mix of licensed and unlicensed spectrum with the unlicensed approach restricted to bands and applications where congestion is unlikely. This conclusion implies that some entity has to determine the likelihood of congestion for each band on a regular basis as circumstances change. We would prefer this to be the market, and have put forward a mechanism whereby a band manager might buy spectrum under auction and turn it into a private commons. However, we have concerns that difficulties in collecting revenues might render this suboptimal. In this case, the responsibility to determine whether a band is likely to be congested falls to the regulator. Regulatory intervention is always a matter of judgment, but we suggest a process which might go some way to guide the regulator.

Some Economics of Wireless Communication
[PDF 457Kb]

Yochai Benkler (Yale Law School)

Spectrum policy appears to be coming to a turning point. After half a century of criticism from economists, the FCC and Congress seem poised to undertake substantial reform of a system that almost all commentators criticize as outdated and inefficient. Two radical alternatives have emerged as major approaches towards reform. The first, more widely known, is the proposal to create a system of property rights in spectrum that would form the basis for a market in spectrum to replace the existing regulatory system. The second, less widely recognized, is the proposal to permit greater deployment of wireless equipment that relies neither on a license nor on a property right. This open wireless network approach—often called “spectrum commons” or “open spectrum”—aims to provide a space for a market in intelligent end user equipment, rather than a market in infrastructure rights.

This article provides an economic analysis of wireless communications that offers a framework for evaluating the relative desirability of the two proposed alternatives. First, it provides a concise description of the technological changes that have made open wireless networks a feasible alternative to licensing and spectrum property. Second, it offers a new way of describing the social cost of wireless communications that enables one to specify more precisely the tradeoff between property rights in spectrum and open wireless networks. I explain why spectrum property based systems will have systematically lower capacity than open wireless networks, and will grow capacity more slowly. This implies that they will only be more efficient, if at all, where the value of the communications they do clear is sufficiently larger than the value of the larger number of communications that an open wireless network would have cleared without sensitivity to their value. The real cost of a wireless communications is, however, highly variable, local, and dynamically changing, making efficient pricing of spectrum property relatively costly, and hence, potentially, imperfect. To the extent that pricing is indeed imperfect, its utilization is unlikely to offer a substantial advantage over value-insensitive open wireless networks. The article then briefly explains the advantages of open wireless networks in terms of innovation, consumer welfare, and security.

My conclusion is that open wireless networks are likely to be better at optimizing the ability of users to communicate without wires than could spectrum property based systems. Our relative lack of actual experience with either open wireless networks or spectrum property-based systems suggests, however, that it is too early to recommend a wholesale transition to one new approach or the other on the basis of this qualitative conclusion. Instead, the last part of the article proposes a series of regulatory moves that could permit the emergence of a long-term and large scale market test of the two alternatives, a test that within a few years could provide us with substantial practical experience to help answer the question of whether the optimal approach would be to adopt spectrum property based systems, open wireless systems, or some combination of the two approaches.

Building the Wireless Infrastructure: Alternative Models
[PDF 172Kb]

François Bar (USC) and Hernan Galperin (USC)

Despite (or perhaps because of) the lack of central planning, Wi-Fi is fast reaching ‘infrastructure’ scale: Almost unknown three years ago, about 26.5 million Wi-Fi capable devices were sold in 2002 alone, and have been deployed by a multitude of individuals and organizations. Historically, decentralized network segments based on new technologies often served initially to extend previous generation infrastructure, and then eventually expanded to become the dominant infrastructure. Will this be true of Wi-Fi as well? To be sure, not all Wi-Fi deployment is decentralized. Several industrial actors, among them the incumbent telephone companies, are proceeding in a centralized and systematic fashion. Next to them however, a growing number of grass-roots organizations, non-profits, and local governments are deploying local extensions to the existing Internet infrastructure. And an emerging category of consolidators attempt to offer users unified access to these disparate infrastructures. To date however, most Wi-Fi deployment has simply amounted to the addition of “wireless tails”, last-mile extensions to the existing Internet infrastructure. In the future however, one can imagine scenarios under which these uncoordinated initiatives coalesce into a new infrastructure, perhaps one based on mesh networking. This paper reviews current efforts to deploy Wi-Fi infrastructure, along three key dimensions: architecture, coordination, and control. It situates them within a broad theoretical framework describing the evolution of information infrastructures. The framework builds on several core concepts, including the tension between centralized and decentralized deployment “”efforts, the historical patterns of infrastructure deployment and substitution, the role of users in shaping the evolution of technology, and the co-evolution of usage and technical systems.

An Initial Assessment of Cooperative Action in Wi-Fi Networking
[PDF 379Kb]

Christian Sandvig (University of Illinois)

In the development of past infrastructures, cooperative and amateur action has been a vehicle for diffusion, experimentation, innovation, popularization, and the provision of new features or services. 802.11 ("Wi-Fi") cooperatives are now proliferating. This user study considers three cases of cooperative action in the discovery, development, and provision of 802.11 (Wi-Fi) networks: (1) mapping and "Warchalking," (2) open-source portal software, and (3) the provision of service as an alternative to paying for a commercial subscription. It finds that these co-ops exist primarily to build elite expertise, but that it may be possible to direct these skilled groups toward societal goals.

The Mobile Communication Society:
A cross-cultural analysis of available evidence on the social uses of wireless communication technology
[PDF 1.9Mb]

Manuel Castells (USC), Mireia Fernandez-Ardevol (UOC), Jack Linchuan Qiu (USC), and Araba Sey (USC)

This research report offers an analytical overview of existing research on the social uses of wireless communication technology. It seeks to provide a solid empirical basis for an informed discussion of the social uses and social effects of wireless in Europe, the Asian Pacific and the United States. Major themes explored include the deep connection between wireless communication and the emergence of youth culture, the transformation of language by texting and multimodalty, the growing importance of wireless communication in socio-political mobilization, and changes in the practice of time and space resulting from wireless communication.

Intimate Connections: Contextualizing Japanese Youth and Mobile Messaging
[PDF 161Kb]

Mizuko Ito (USC)

This paper describes social, cultural, and historical contexts that structure current mobile text messaging practices of Japanese youth. First are ways in which mobile messaging has been structured by the power geometries of existing places of home, school, and public places. Second, the paper presents the central social context in which youth peer messaging practice is situated, that of the intimate peer group. Finally, the paper describes how these practices are situated in a postwar history of intergenerational struggle and cultural politics over youth street and communication cultures. Our central argument is that youth technology use is driven not only by certain psychological and developmental imperatives, but also by youths’ position in historically specific social structures. Mobile messaging provides a mechanism through which youth can overcome some of the adult-controlled power structures that govern their everyday lives.