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The Google WiFi Saga / Creative Commons Spectrum

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Author: WildC@rd

You remember the whole Google wi-fi ruckus and saga right? They were going to start in Mountain View and try it out, then they bid to do it in San Francisco and then the world was up in arms that they would take over the world with their black fiber powered wi-fi networks and we would all be tracked by our mac addresses and never ever ever to sleep safe in our beds because google will finally know everything and everyone and have adverts coming out of our collective web kazoo's. Relax. They learned the same as the others who tried muni wi-fi. Its hard. Much harder than you would think. Technologically, fiscally and operationally. Back here in Portland, OR the metro roll out of free wi-fi has been massively underwhelming. It is easier for me to surf on my 33.8k GPRS connection than it is trying to use the wi-fi in Portland metro land. Really i haven't been able to connect once. Coffee shops - no problems, way better. But like the good scientists Google collectively are, they aren't giving up. Chris Sacca the brains behind the operation and a good friend of OReilly is coming to Etel 07 to talk about their experiences. In fact he even appears to be encouraging partisan participation in the effort. Unlicensed Spectrum Tales From The Lamppost: The story of why Google opted to cover Mountain View with free WiFi, what were the obstacles they needed to overcome, what the result has been, and how you too could become an ISP. This will be great sharing of knowledge and findings that shouldn't be missed. His use of the words "unlicensed spectrum" has made me think. The NTIA has a great diagram of the spectrum allocation in the US. From what we can see and discover via federal websites most of it is licensed and reserved. More accurately the usable and useful bands are licensed and reserved. If there was a useful spectrum band that could be made available on a Creative Commons or MIT license, would this be useful to the public? Or more contentiously is it better that it is regulated so that the band remains useable and useful to someone at least? Physics makes some frequencies and power ratings hazadrous for humans. We already have some useful bands allocated, 900mhz and 2.4 gig have been great steps forward, but what next?. Control and free reign will both have their merits and detraction's. There is undoubtedly an elastic coupling here between the need for control (and safety) and the freedom that innovation requires to flourish. I'd love to hear people's thoughts and musings on this.
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