A lot of people are echoing similar sentiments about the state of our national and global IP infrastructure, and these sentiments seem to amount to “give me more speed, cover a bigger access geography, don’t filter or penalize my content, and drop the cost to nearly nothing if at all possible.”

Andy Abramson wants OPEN NET to become a standard operating procedure for every organization that connects to the Internet. Great idea. I too have visited several offices that have a separate, open segment for guests with the intent of providing them courtesy access to the outside world. The cost of bandwidth needs to drop a little further for this to make sense for everybody I think.  This is an idea that makes sense to the collective, not to the individual infrastructure participant.  Ie. you really need a critical mass for the idea before it becomes ultimately useful and reliable. Think about that–a global DMZ where all applications “just work”. Pretty neat.
Meanwhile, Tom Evslin is advocating wholesale de-licensing of radio spectrum in the name of make better use of the available RF by filling it with IP packets on a massive scale. Problem is, the RF ain’t available. It’s licensed by, at least in the U.S., the Federal Communications Commission, and the vast majority of available spectrum is reserved for things like satellite links, terrestrial radio broadcasts, public safety communications, the military, amateur radio operators, point-to-point communication systems, and a variety of other decidedly non-IP purposes.  Tom makes the point that AM could be repurposed for long-distance data applications, noting that the topographic coverage of AM is superior to that of WiFi. And he’s right. But there ain’t no gettin’ that bandwidth, no way, no how.  Besides, low-frequency data equals slow digital bandwidth (even 800 mHz is pretty poor for data), and can you imagine trying pry those AM licenses out of Clear Channel’s grubby hands? NOT. GONNA. HAPPEN. Especially not now that HDRadio has arrived and terrestrial commercial operators are running three to five  sideband channels for HD receivers. Really cool stuff, and really not going away any time this century, merely to make way for what Clear Channel certainly thinks is some digital hippy utopian idea like Open Spectrum.
But I like the thinking. I like the idea of free, cooperative networks. I like the idea of a wireless last-mile. I like the idea of competing interests  operating parallel Muni-Area Networks and competing for consumers in the same geography. And freeing up spectrum would probably be conducive to such an environment.  And it may happen (in my dreams).

The FCC can’t even adhere to their own analog-obsoleting “hard deadlines” for HDTV broadcasts, how the heck are they ever going to mandate changes to privately-licensed spectrum with pissing off legions of consumers? The FCC is never going to tell ninety-one-year old Bessie May that she can’t watch Regis on her 15″ Zenith any more.  I’m trying to work with you on this one Tom, but I think the spectrum in twenty or thirty years is going to look more or less like it does today: a mess.

And why is it that, whenever somebody doesn’t like the way competing interests control a common resource, it’s referred to as “Balkanization”? That’s just like comparing Open Spectrum to “Anarchization”. Trust me, I’ve read Werblog and I know the thought process behind Open Spectrum. It’s very consistent with my ideas about “voice over everything” and “everywhereNet”. In principle I actually agree with the idea. It’s a great idea. Completely impractical and politically and socially impossible, however. At the end of the day, Open Spectrum can only work on Mars, where there are no people with institutions already built on the bandwidth.

Look, we’ve got 2 gHz and 5 gHz bandwidth to work with, and we can do quite a bit with that! Soon, WiMax wil be practical. High-density coverage with streaming IP services is possible using these technologies alone. Would it be easier with lower-frequency stuff? Yeah, probably.  But let’s not pin our hopes for future content delivery and interactivity upon a resource that is well out of our reach.