My World for a Bit of Bandwidth

In a world loaded with technology we act like campers swatting flies with 19th century band allocations. –

The problem is that we’re all locked into the spectrum offered by a single cell phone carrier, and our phones can’t even access most of the wifi hotspots that are in range, much less use them to make calls.

As Yap et al. outline in a provocative new paper entitled Delivering Capacity for the Mobile Internet by Stitching Together Networks, this leads to all sorts of inefficiencies that could be solved by a network ruled by standards that allowed devices to be agnostic about which portion of the wireless spectrum they are currently using:

- Increased capacity through more efficient statistical sharing. Cellular network operators tend to heavily over-provision their network in order to handle times of peak load and congestion. Most of the time, the net- work is lightly loaded. If instead they were able to hand off traffic to each other, or from cellular to WiFi networks, then their traffic load would be smoother, and their network more efficient. For example, what if AT&T could re-route traffic from their iPhone users to T-Mobile during an overload? Or T-Mobile could re- route their customers’ flows to a nearby WiFi hotspot?

- Exploit differences in technologies and frequency bands. Mobile technologies such as EVDO and HSPA provide wide area coverage with consistent bandwidth guaran- tees; while technologies like WiFi provide high band- width and low latency. Lower frequencies provides better coverage and penetration; while higher frequen- cies provides better spatial reuse. Being able to use the most appropriate technology for the application at hand would make best use of capacity available.

- Open up new sources of capacity. The ability to move between networks also open up new sources of capacity. For example, one can now use a network such as that of fon.com to supplement their main network, without having to deploy an extensive WiFi network. Such crowd-sourcing can be a powerful tool to cover dead spots and relieve congestion.

ThirdPipe has observed this since it started posting. We have advocated a technical solution set that included opening up the bands, requiring intelligent spread spectrum devices. We could open up that other 95% of the bandwidth not currently being utilized. Prices would drop, additional services can be had and disasters like the AT&T 4G debacle in places like New York City.

Its time.

Linky.