Fergus Cassidy

Unlicensed to thrill

IN case there is any doubt that internet - and other technologies based around internet protocol (IP) - is one of the most disruptive inventions ever, a glance at the dire state of broadband availability worldwide is evidence enough.

Not only is broadband not being rolled-out due to fears about copyright and digital rights management, but the major telecommunications companies have built their business models based on voice and will resist the move to broadband at all costs. Unable to come up with a business model that allows mountains of data to run across their lines, the telcos have hit one of the biggest crises in the hundred plus years of their existence.

Slowly but surely the global telecommunications companies are caught like a rabbit in the headlights, between the safety of the past and the danger of the future.

In the United States the situation with the telcos is close to breaking point, and recently a group of over 40 of some of the leading lights in network technology produced a statement that called for a 'fast fall' approach by regulators. Fast fall meaning that telcos should not be given any aid whatsoever to prolong their outmoded businesses.

In a recent statement to the Federal Communications Commission the group said that "the telecom debacle is not a cyclical phenomenon. The telephone network's technological base, and the business model under which this old technology thrived, are obsolete. Recovery is not an option".

They then urged the FCC to "resist at all costs, bailouts for the telephone industry; acknowledge that non-internet communications equipment is economically obsolete; discourage telephone companies from thwarting municipal or public-owned initiatives and accelerate exploration of innovative spectrum use".

The United States is by no means alone in this quagmire. The noises coming from Eircom about seriously curtailing its capital spending just about drowns out the noise from its heels dragging over broadband roll-out.

And that's the other disruptive thing about internet technology. Its ability to disrupt the future. No matter what steps or plans that the telephone companies come up with to stay alive (and at what cost), there is nothing they can do to predict the future, never mind stave it off.

The internet is such an ingenious and homegeneous technology that has not only spawned massive innovation but has the potential to take over from the telephone and make a clean break from the past. Internet protocol is capable of running on everything and may even run over the telcos. If the internet can't run properly on the telephone lines or is impeded for long enough, then in true internet fashion, it will find a workable way around that.

That's what is happening with wireless technology and Wi-Fi in particular. Using low power and unlicensed parts of the radio spectrum, this technology has moved in leaps and bounds over the past year or so. It hasn't passed Ireland by as IrishWAN.org can attest to.

Even Michael Powell, the normally conservative-thinking chairman of the US regulatory board, raised an eyebrow or two when he said recently: "Wireless is not a foreign thing to consumers. It's becoming an indispensable thing to the average consumer and that changes minds and that changes policy. I think that's really, really important".

In another speech last month he said that "modern technology has fundamentally changed the nature and extent of spectrum use. I believe we [regulators] should continuously examine whether there are market or technological solutions that can - in the long run - replace or supplement pure regulatory solutions to interference".

If the telephone companies continue to behave like a cross between an ostrich and an alligator, then the internet will find other ways to carry itself. And in the short term that means wireless.

But again disruption threatens. Moving the internet off the phone lines and on to the radio spectrum can deceive the tortoise into thinking it's a hare. Take the following from the Irish regulators current consultation document on radio spectrum: "the radio spectrum itself is finite and due to the limits of technology only a small percentage of the spectrum can currently be used for communications purposes and like other limited natural resources must be managed carefully if the maximum benefit is to be obtained" (ODTR 02/43, section 5.4).

The Irish regulator is by no means alone in the world with this view of the radio spectrum as a finite resource. The finite aspect is of crucial important when it comes to future technology planning. This approach leads automatically to a licensing regime because scarcity implies that demand will always outreach supply.

But what if the situation changes? Whether the radio waves are finite or not, the technologies that are coming, such as ultra-wideband and software-defined radio, do hold out the serious possibility of overcoming the previous restrictions and opening up a whole new period of innovation. If handled correctly.

The wireless internet is just like building the internet all over again. This time advocates of open spectrum are appealing to let technology decide what's best and not regulate for what is available. They point out that opening up the radio spectrum will create innovation on a par with that already achieved with the net.

Even Microsoft have nodded toward the possibilities. Craig Mundie, its chief technology officer, commented recently that "such networks can develop in unlicensed spectrum, using technologies, network architectures and financing models that are different than those used by existing networks. One of the most important and often overlooked consequences of the creation of unlicensed bands was the tapping of an entirely new source of capital to build networks - the financial resources of the users themselves".

This was the way the internet was built and the reason it continues to impact at all levels. Open protocols and allowing individual users great flexibility in their own choices of hardware and software has led to rapid growth and innovation.

The internet has reached the point where after only 20 years or so, it is seriously threatening the hegemony of the telephone industry. That technology took five times longer to become ascendent.

Deciding how the radio spectrum is to be developed in the future, is a decision better made by looking to the future and not by justifying or propping up the past. The radio spectrum is a naturally occuring phenomenon and belongs to everyone.

The telephone sytem in Ireland (and elsewhere) did once belong to everyone when it was publicly-owned. It was sold off in order to create a competitive market.

It would compound the misery of that experience if the same thing happened to the radio spectrum.