Communications

Happy Telephone Patents Day

Mostly we hear about mobile phone patent wars, but today is special. It's the anniversary of telephone patent disputes.

On February 14, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell filed a US patent application for his telephone. On that same day, Elisha Gray filed a "patent caveat" for his telephone.

In 1876 a patent caveat was a preliminary document not unlike today provisional patent application.  The point is they both went on record the same day and that was the start of a long patent dispute.

So today is the 136th anniversay of the start of the unfortunate (or beautiful, depending on your point of view) lasting relationship between telephony and patent lawyers.

 

MIMO is a superset of radio vortices

Back in October I wrote a blog post on radio vortices after reading an article that suggested Twisting Radio Waves Could Give Us 100x More Wireless Bandwidth. I postulated that this might be a viable way to get additional independent paths for a point-to-point MIMO radio link.

I was wrong!

Shortly after I wrote that blog post, Ove Edfors pointed me to a paper that he wrote with Anders J. Johansson, Is orbital angular momentum (OAM) based radio communication an unexploited area? In this paper they prove that radio vortices are a subset of MIMO. Specifically, they show that OAM radio communication, i.e. using radio vortices, is a sub-class of traditional MIMO communication with circular antenna arrays. So, if you have a set of antenna elements that can create radio vortices, the calculations inherent in a MIMO radio system will automatically create and use vortices to the extent they are useful.

Unfortunately they also proved vortices don't give us the additional independent paths I'd hoped for. To get spatial multiplexing gain, MIMO needs additional independent paths, a.k.a. multi-path. Multipath is easy to come by in an office environment (due to reflections from walls, ceiling, floor, filing cabinets, etc.). But in an outdoor point-to-point link with directional antennas there are no reflections, so the only independent paths we've been able to exploit are those resulting from polarization differences (e.g. horizontal vs vertical). This remains the case - radio vortices don't help.

At very short distances, with widely spaced antenna elements at either end, you can get multiple independent paths, just due to the separate fields radiated by separate elements, but this separation gets jumbled as soon as the two ends of a link are separated by more than the Rayleigh distance, as shown in this graph.

At 5.8 GHz with a total antenna apeture of 30 cm, the Rayleigh distance is about 3.5 meters. Since I'm interested in point-to-point links that are typically over 50 meters, we remain limited to two spatial streams. There are no additional paths due to twisted vortices.

 

MassTLC Innovation Unconference

I'm at the MassTLC's annual Unconference. I've been to each of the previous events and each year it gets larger.  I'll post on my Goggle+ account (that also propagates to my Twitter stream - @brough - and my Facebook stream with the has tag #MassTLC.

Valuing the white spaces above 3 GHz

Today, significant money and political capital are being expended to obtain and hold onto usable license-exempt access in the TV white spaces. These efforts are important for applications today but there’s a follow-on spectrum initiative that, if successful, would yield much greater benefits in the long term. We should be seeking similar access to as much as possible of the spectrum above 3 GHz, almost all of which is dramatically under-utilized today.

Throughout the 20th century and right up to today, it's been the case that higher frequencies "don't go as far." But this is the result of technology limits, not ultimate physical limits, and these technology limits are now being overcome.

Within ten years it will be widely apparent that higher frequencies go just as far through the atmosphere, they do just as well at penetrating buildings, and they have other extremely important benefits that lower frequencies lack.

Among their many advantages, directional antennas are smaller and more economical at higher frequencies. Directional antennas reduce received interference and facilitate spatial reuse, thus vastly increasing the utility of higher frequency spectrum.

What’s more, it's easier to send high-speed data because there is more spectrum available at higher frequencies. We'll never be able to send 1 Gbps over any real-world 6 MHz TV channel but, above 3 GHz, we can easily find 200 MHz of spectrum that's temporarily vacant and that's enough to carry more than 1 Gbps of data even with today's technology.

For the next decade or two, TV white spaces will continue to be important for penetrating foliage, but even with foliage, the physics of what is possible differs from 20th century experience. In the future, the real action will be above 3 GHz.

Finally, while it's never easy to persuade existing licensees to accept secondary users in “their spectrum” even while it’s idle and they are non-interfering, it should be easier to fight the political battles now, when most people don't realize the long term value of spectrum above 3 GHz.  Now is the time we should be seeking license-exempt access to as much as possible of the white spaces above 3 GHz.

 

Details for the technically inclined

All photons (light or radio waves of any frequency) go at the same speed (the "speed of light"). In our atmosphere, photons at frequencies above 10 GHz are subject absorption because they excite resonances in atmospheric molecules like water vapor or oxygen. But the atmosphere is transparent to radio signals between 30 MHz and 10 GHz so, with a clear line-of-sight, radio signals at 8 GHz go just as far as signals at 700 MHz or 50 MHz [2].

This physical fact is sometimes missed because the Free Space Path-Loss (FSPL) equation (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-space_path_loss) commonly used to calculate radio frequency (RF) transmission losses actually encapsulates two effects. These are 1) the actual path loss (which is independent of frequency) and 2) the receiving antenna aperture which is based on wavelength. Thus the FSPL equation assumes smaller antennas for higher frequencies and of course, smaller antennas collect less energy. With equal antenna apertures, unobstructed line-of-sight radio transmissions are frequency independent, even with 20th century technology.

The problems that have favored lower frequencies are reflection, refraction, polarization and diffraction. Higher frequencies have shorter wavelengths and shorter wavelengths signals are more easily scattered. Scattered signals that reach the receiver have taken a longer path and thus arrive a little later. With 20th century technology, these delayed signals (called "multi-path" signals) were just part of the noise degrading the primary signal. Now with Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIMO), it's possible to decode multi-path signals, remove them from the noise, align them in time and add them to the primary signal - multi-path signals are no longer a deficit but actually improve system performance!

MIMO technology only began to emerge in the mid-1990s but it is now an option in the latest Wi-Fi, WiMAX and LTE specifications. MIMO uses multiple radios and higher order MIMO requires increasingly sophisticated calculations, but early (2x2) MIMO systems are already widely deployed in 802.11n consumer WiFi products and continued semi-conductor progress (following Moore's Law) will make MIMO calculations and additional radios ever lower cost.

Also inherent in higher order MIMO is beamforming and beamsteering.  As the number of radios and antennas in a MIMO system increases, the system is able to simulate tighter and tighter beams, providing ever more spatial reuse of spectrum and more range or capacity for individual connections. However, tighter beams require more wavelengths of separation between the outer most antenna elements.  Again higher frequencies have shorter wavelengths, so antennas that support tighter beams require less space at higher frequencies. For example, a 10 degree beam at 700 MHz requires an antenna ~10 feet across.  To do the same at 8 GHz, the antenna need only be ~10 inches across.

Long term, the spectrum above 3 GHz will be more valuable than the spectrum below 3 GHz.  Let’s get license-exempt access to these white spaces now, while the political stakes are still (relatively) low.

Some useful references

[1] Spectrum occupancy measurements for frequencies below 3 GHz, see: http://www.sharedspectrum.com/papers/spectrum-reports/.  Fewer measurements have been made above 3 GHz but those done show negligible occupancy (certainly when compared with bands below 3 GHz), for example see:  http://www.sharedspectrum.com/papers/spectrum-reports/

[2] This graphic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Atmospheric_electromagnetic_opacity.svg shows the transparency / opacity of our atmosphere at different wavelengths.  Note that 10 meters is 30 MHz and 3 cm is 10 GHz.

[3] While the total atmosphere (as seen from space) is highly absorbing above 10 GHz, shorter range point-to-point connections are still possible as this more detailed spectrum shows for the range 10 GHz - 1000 GHz: http://www.omlinc.com/library/other-references/atmospheric-absorption-of-millimeter-waves.html

[4] NIST, Electromagnetic Signal Attenuation in Construction Materials, NISTIR 6055, http://fire.nist.gov/bfrlpubs/build97/PDF/b97123.pdf  Note that ordinary window glass is essentially transparent to RF at the frequencies tested (500 MHz to 8 GHz) while most other building materials provide substantial attenuation.  One caveat: as this study was done to help design RF-based measurement device for the construction industry, they post-processed their data to remove delayed signals.  In other words, MIMO communications systems will do considerably better than these measurements suggest.

[5]  Okamoto, Kitao & Ichitsubo, Outdoor to Indoor Propagation Loss Prediction in 800 Mhz to 8 GHz Band for an Urban Area, March 2009, http://ds.lib.kyutech.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/10228/2399/1/IEEE.pdf  Detailed measurements demonstrating frequency independence for signals penetrating real life buildings.

[6] Perras & Bouchard, Fading Characteristics of RF Signals due to Foliage in Frequency Bands from 2 to 60 GHz, http://horwitzinternational.com/PDF%20Files/Trees%20and%20801_11.pdf  Careful measurements show signal attenuation peaks when RF wavelengths equal leaf size and then falls off at even higher frequencies.

[7] RF Engineering for Wireless Networks: Hardware, Antennas and Propagation, by Daniel M. Dobkin, PhD, ISBN 0750678739 has useful chapters on signal propagation in the atmosphere, in the environment and in buildings.

 

Modulating information onto radio vortices

It's well understood that photons carry both energy and linear momentum. It's less widely understood but known for over 100 years that photons can also carry angular momentum. But it's only in the past 20 years that light orbital angular momentum has been studied, and only in the past year or so that serious work has been done with radio frequency photons. Recently I posted the URL of a Discover magazine article, Twisting Radio Waves Could Give Us 100x More Wireless Bandwidth in my Google+ stream (with copies to my Twitter and Facebook streams).

That post prompted one public comment and several off-line email discussions, so let me elaborate. While I don't expect 100x wireless capacity any time soon, this is a real effect that might be used for 2x, 4x or 8x gains within the next decade. Wikipedia has the best visualization:

The relevant scientific article is Radio beam vorticity and orbital angular momentum by Bo Thidé, Fabrizio Tamburini, Elettra Mari, Filippo Romanato & Cesare Barbieri available at arXiv.org.

Thidé et al formed their twisted radio waves by reflecting an RF source off an approximately spiral-formed reflector. This is a cool experiment but you'd need a set of reflectors, one per channel, each with slightly different depths of their spirals to begin making wireless capacity gains. To make this commercially viable, we need an antenna that can create several different orders of vortex in the same physical space.

If someone figures this out, then the resulting separate channels could be used directly with MIMO electronics and an antenna that fits in limited space, much as 2x2 MIMO systems use horizontally and vertically polarized antennas that fit in the same physical space.

It will be very interesting to see if someone can come up with an antenna structure that can produce different order spiral vorteces in the same space. In any event, this is an area to watch.

Wireless ISP Conference(s) - WISPAPalooza 2011

I'm at the Wireless ISP Association's conference in Las Vegas.  The conference name: WISPAPALOOZA with these sessions. Following the main conference, there are several vendor conferences including the Ubiquiti World Conference on Thursday and a MikroTik User Meeting (MUM).  Since netBlazr is using both MikroTik and Ubiquiti gear, this is a good conference to attend.

I'm also speaking tomorrow and moderating a session on Antenna Propagation: Principals and Possibilities.

I'll be taking notes on Twitter, but on the netBlazr twitter account.  If you interested in, follow me at:

http://twitter.com/netblazr

 

No spectrum shortage, just an allocation problem

As a new study from Citi Investment Research & Analysis make clear, the US does not have a spectrum shortage. We've just allowed a relatively small number of carriers to control the spectrum. Quoting the study's summary:

Today, US carriers have 538MHz of spectrum. And, additional 300MHz of additional spectrum waiting in the wings. But, only 192MHz is in use today.

Perhaps if we had an effective "use it or lose it" policy in place, or a heavy tax on unused spectrum a more vibrant market for this spectrum would emerge.  But today, the problem is not a shortage of spectrum but the fact that what's out there is not being utilized.

Obviously things vary by geography, but Citi's summary is completely justified. Their methodology is thorough both as to who owns what and what is deployed county-by-county for 3100 separate counties. Here's the summary of what's in use:

and here are the details on what's currently owned by US carriers:

So why would we repack the TV broadcasters and auction off that spectrum when we've just finished putting in place unlicensed access to TV white spaces?  Unlicensed spectrum will be heavily utilized while more exclusively owned spectrum will just add to the pool of under utilized resources.

Limitations of Carrier Grade NAT, and some workarounds

Qtel, the largest carrier in Qatar (and nearly the only Internet provider) appears to connect all their users (~600K) to the Internet through just one or a very few public IPv4 addresses.  82.148.97.69 was their single public address in 2006-2007.  How can network address translation (NAT) put all those users through just one IP address?

Well, both UDP and TCP include 16-bit port numbers, so for each IP address there are 2**16 = 65,536 unique IP address/ TCP port number combinations which can support network address translation (NAT) for more than 65K simultaneous connections.  Of course, individual browser sessions may open multiple connections so each on-line user can tie up several such connections, even several dozen.

But there are more unique fields that come into play.  On the Internet side of the NAT, each active IP session has five fields of interest:  source IP address, source port, protocol, destination address; destination port.  So you can use the same source address and port number for multiple independent sessions if the sessions are going to different destinations or using different protocols. With this approach, one public IP address can clearly support millions and millions of connections.

But what if most of your users are trying to reach just a few destination addresses?  That’s a problem Qtel had (or at least their users had) when accessing Wikipedia in 2006.

One obvious solution is to devote more than one public IP address for the whole country!  Indeed, if a few hundred people are attempting to access the same address simultaneously, then having a few hundred IP addresses (for the whole country!) would do it. Of course, if the destination IP address is that of Google’s search bar, you might need more than a few hundred IP addresses.

There is another path, one which Geoff Huston alludes to in a recent article on the IPv6 transition.

… we may expect to see a push to re-architect content into Content Distribution Networks that have points of presence in major access networks.

Today, major content distribution networks (CDNs) like Akamai, Amazon Cloudfront, Limelight and Google each maintain thousands of servers close to the edges of the Internet.  These servers cache popular content close to where the users are.

When many, many users in Qatar simultaneously try to access the same content, the load on Qtel’s NAT boxes could be dramatically reduced by putting the appropriate CDN’s caching servers within Qtel’s private address space.  Then requests for popular content wouldn’t even go through the NAT, reducing total traffic and dramatically reducing the occasions when two users are going through the NAT to the same public IP address.

It’s not in line with the Internet’s original end-to-end design, but as IPv4 addresses get more expensive, we can expect to see more and more use of NAT and CDN servers moving into carriers' private address domains.

 

White spaces above 3 GHz

Yesterday, I gave a pitch for more access, on a secondary use basis, to the vast swaths of spectrum above 3 GHz - spectrum that is largely unused in most locations most of the time.  Then I gave an update on netBlazr and how we are using the existing license-exempt spectrum in the 5 GHz band (over 500 MHz in the US).

I'm sorry there's no audio, but here's the deck I used:

White spaces above 3 GHz and an application

View more presentations from Brough Turner

Wireless conferences in Austin Texas this week

While the big event is Internet Telephony Expo, there are two other conferences and a startup pitch fest going on in Austin this week.  I'm leaving in the early morning and will be speaking twice tomorrow afternoon and then pitching netBlazr on Wednesday afternoon.

Tomorrow at 2:30pm I'm appearing on a panel at 4G Wireless Evolution. The panel is entitled "Wireless Fixes Access with Redundancy." The other panelists are from Sprint and Wave2Wave. Sprint is using point-to-point wireless for backhaul from their cell sites since they can't get competitive access to the fiber backhaul that AT&T and Verizon have. Wave2Wave is wireless Internet Service Procider. As netBlazr's approach is rather different, in both our business model and our use of fixed wireless technology, this should be an interesting panel.

Then at 3:30pm I'm the sole speaker for a session in the Super WiFi Summit just down the hall. The description is:

White Spaces: The Radio Evolution

Tuesday - 09/13/11 • 3:30-4:15pm

Brough Turner , Founder , netBlazr.com

Smart antennas and smart radios, Cognitive Radio and Beam Forming are on the verge of being incorporated into product. As we head toward these technologies, the opportunities exist for new models of service sharing and interconnection to deliver broadband solutions.

My talk will be a mix of what's possible today, what will become possible with next generation silicon and how netBlazr is using today's and tomorrow's technology to do an end run around the existing broadband market.  Of particular interest is where additional white spaces would be useful - hint it's not just in the TV bands.

Finally, there's Startup Camp on Wednesday afternoon and early evening.  netBlazr is one of five new companies choosen to present and I'll be doing the honors.  Bob Metcalfe is the keynote speaker and there will be a panel of judges to provide critiques on the startups' pitches.

YouTube video flow control actually causes packet loss (and retransmission)

There's an interesting article in the April 2011 issue of ACM SIGCOM Computer Communications Review. The study by Shane Alcock and Richard Nelson (also accessible here) looks at the way application level algorithms on YouTube's video servers interact with TCP and the actual buffers in a retail DSL delivery system.  I found this particularly interesting as I had already looked into the burstiness of other kinds of traffic in a set of posts in late 2009 (this post in particular).

Here's the way YouTube servers deliver data (at least as of January 2010) to high capacity clients:

By high capacity client I mean the client device has enough buffer space to absorb whatever data the video server wants to send and the client's broadband Internet access service has enough capacity to avoid congestion during delivery of these video bursts.  Unfortunately, the delivery rate YouTube was using in January 2010 was enough to overwhelm the data buffers in typical DSL infrastructure as this graph illustrates.

It appears the YouTube servers send data in blocks of 64 KBytes or 128 KBytes (or multiples thereof) and these blocks can exceed the available buffer space in the DSL delivery infrastructure - mostly likely the buffers in Broadband Remote Access Server (BRAS).  At least one BRAS I was familiar with in 2004-2005 had 200 ms of buffering, obviously not enough for one burst per second.

The good news is the net effect was only a 1% increase in the total data (due to retransmission) so this isn't a big problem and the authors discussed the issue with Google where engineers were working on a solution (in 2010).  What's interesting to me is the extent to which the sizing of buffers for IP infrastructure is still a complex issue and the ease with which a simple application level decision can go wrong.

 

3D On-Line Interactive Travel Planning

I routinely use Google Maps to check out building-to-building wireless shots, either directly or via Ubiquiti's AirLink. I also have followed (in a low key sort of way) various 3D interactive simulations like Edushi (roughly "E-City") which covers many cities in China. There are more pointers in this blog post of a few years ago.

Now a friend, Terence Mak, is going after the vacation planning market directly with a new company "3rd Planet." They're not on the air yet, but they're working on their first project, Road to Everest, which will allow you to cover the trekking route to Everest basecamp, hopefully later this year. Meanwhile, there's an article here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/karen-rubin/travel-planning-goes-3d-3_b_888538.html

Definitely something I want!

Freemium applied to wireless networks

Recently, netBlazr got an inquiry from someone who had seen this video.

It's the talk I gave at the International Summit for Community Wireless Networks (#IS4CWN) in Vienna last August. I put my slides up on Slideshare even before I returned from Vienna but I didn't realize the conference organizers had put the videos up (apparently this happened in March).

eComm 2011

I'm at eComm 2011 in California for the next three days (#eComm). eComm is one of the best events I attend for the content and for the people who are there.

I'll be speaking tomorrow afternoon, basically giving an update on netBlazr.  Meanwhile, I'll be keeping my notes using my personal Twitter account (@brough).

Comparative broadband speeds - US loses again

Recently Google Labs added the Ookla Speedtest data set to their wonderful Public Data Explorer so I just had to try it out.

Here's my first graph:

These are not bogus statistics. These graphs show the average of all the millions of actual speedtests run in the respective countries over the past 4 months.

The apologists for the US's poor showing usually start by pointing out that the US has much lower population density than South Korea, Sweden or Bulgaria. Of course that doesn't hold water if you compare Seoul, Stockholm and Sofia to New York, Los Angeles or Chicago. In Seoul, Stockholm and Sofia consumers can get 100/100 Mbps Internet access at affordable prices (e.g. $13/month in Stockholm) while such service isn't even offered to consumers in New York, Los Angeles or Chicago.

 

Attending Nantucket Conference

I attended the Nantucket Conference ( #ack2011 ) for the first time last year and found it well worth it - partly to increase my local network here in New England (versus all my many friends in other parts of the world); but also for specific case studies that held lessons for me and for netBlazr.  I'm here again this year and the program has just kicked off with three game company CEOs talking about what's up in their space.

Mostly I expect to be taking notes in the form of Tweets (@brough) so follow me there if you are interested.

 

netBlazr a finalist in MassChallege 2011

Thanks to all who voted for us, endorsed us and otherwise helped netBlazr become a finalist in the MassChallenge 2011 startup contest and thus eligible to participate in their 2011 accelerator program.

By the way, we're also a finalist for the MITX innovation awards in the "Best Bootstrapped Startup" category.

Please vote for netBlazr at MassChallenge

netBlazr benefitted from last year’s MassChallenge startup contest even thought we were only a few weeks old when we entered.  We’ve come a long way in the past 11 months.  If you haven't been following, we're trying to change the face of broadband access in US cities (more info here).

netBlazr has entered the MassChallenge 2011 Startup Contest and we’d like to solicite your endorsement of our entry.

It’s easy to vote:

1.  Register at https://masschallenge.org/user/register You need to provide an email addresss and pick a “role.” But if you specify your role as “Observer/Supporter” you can avoid filing out any other forms.

2.  You’ll receive an email from MassChallenge.  Click on the link in this email to validate your registration.

3.  Go to http://masschallenge.org/profile/team/netblazr and check out our profile.

4.  Float your cursor over the “Votes” area in the upper right, then click on five stars.

That’s all there is to it.  Thank you!

Paid Peering: Issues and misunderstandings

Recently I was asked my opinion of Google paying France Telecom (FT) to deliver traffic to into FT's network, i.e. Google paying to peer with FT. I wasn't aware Google pays FT. I don't even know if it's true. But I do know this is a topic fraught with misunderstandings. Also, if there is a "problem" here, the problem is one of competition (or lack thereof) in portions of the French broadband access market. It is not a problem that can be or should be fixed by "network neutrality" regulations or legislation.

To understand what's happening, you need to understand the Internet's business model and you need to know something about peering as it works in the real world.

The most suscinct definition of the Internet I'm aware of is: 
Internet (n.) A voluntary agreement among network operators to exchange traffic for their mutual benefit.

This is very different from the telephone networks (fixed or mobile) where relations between operators are governed by laws and regulations, change at a regulatory pace, i.e. decades, and are continuously gamed by political processes.

Each Internet operator needs to be able to reach all possible Internet addresses, so interconnection is essential. If you are a small operator, like netBlazr, you purchase "Internet transit" services from a larger operator. Rates are volume dependent and arrangements are similar to those of any other business or individual purchasing an Internet access service.  If you are a large operator, a large content provider or a very large business, then interconnection costs and arrangements become negotiable. Two operators in Holland will likely agree to exchange that portion of their respective traffic that is destined for each other's networks at the AMS-IX which is local, rather than pay for Internet transit services that would likely carry that traffic to London or the US where a higher tier operator would handle the exchange.  Thus the two Dutch operators engage in peering for that portion of their traffic for which it makes sense.

This pattern is repeated throughout the Internet as each operator evaluates where, how, and with whom it makes sense to exchange portions of their traffic so as to minimize costs, increase performance or achieve other goals important to that operator. Thus there are vastly more interconnection contracts, formed under more diverse terms, for the Internet than ever was the case for the telephone network. Further, this network of agreements is in constant flux as individual operators find better deals.

It's instructive to follow the growth of YouTube from their founding through their acquisition by Google. When YouTube began, they had to pay standard rates for Internet access. As they grew to be a significant content source, their cost of Internet access fell as more and more operators asked to peer with them, as I discussed two years ago.

So between Google and France Telecom, who has negotiating leverage? and why?

France Telecom already has peering agreements with multiple other Internet backbones, so their customers have several paths to get to Google content.  Why would either party want to connect directly?

First, it might cut costs. Whatever pre-agreement path the traffic takes involves some cost. Perhaps that's money paid to other operators or it may just be the cost of maintaining the facilities needed for the pre-agreement traffic (e.g. to go via London).  I can't guess the specifics for Google or for France Telecom, but each has a possible interest here.

Second, it will likely improve performance. Even shaving 50 milliseconds off of round trip times (RTT) can improve user experience as accessing a single web page can require the exchange of dozens of messages, thus 50 ms less RTT can shave more than a second off the page load time. In a competitive market, France Telecom might want to advertise their network as the "fastest," but local access competition is not that great in France (or in many markets, like the US).  France Telecom has nearly 50% market share.  They are losing ground to Free, but apparently it's not enough to justify a marketing campaign based on the "fastest" network.  Google on the other hand, has a strong reason to want better user experiences. In Google experiments with search latency, longer latencies reduce the number of searches a user does per day. Given the number of Google search users on the France Telecom network, Google can directly compute their monetary return from cutting search latency by X ms. So Google's negotiators have hard numbers in their back pocket when they go to talk with France Telecom.

Is this good or bad? Well, if France Telecom doesn't have to compete on the performance of their service, that suggests a failure of competition policy. But then a solution should address competition in the French Internet access market, not government regulation of peering or the imposition of "network neutrality" regulations on operators that don't have a monopoly position.

For myself, I look forward to continued growth of new providers in France, like Free, as I discussed in the January issue of NGN Magazine.

 

Paul Baran and open spectrum

Paul Baran, an engineer who helped create the technical underpinnings for the Arpanet (the precursor to today’s Internet), died Saturday in Palo Alto, California.  While everyone else celebrates his early contributions to packet networking, I will remember him for his open spectrum advocacy.

I never had the privilege of hearing Paul Baran speak live, but as I became interested in wireless spectrum, one of the earliest references I encountered was this transcript of Paul Baran's Keynote Address at the 8th Annual Conference on Next Generation Networks Washington, DC, November 9, 1994.

His title says it all:

Visions of the 21st Century Communications: Is the Shortage of Radio Spectrum for Broadband Networks of the Future a Self Made Problem?

And here's an excerpt:

   The key point at issue that we will question is the widespread belief
   that we don't have enough radio spectrum to go around. This is a
   common, fundamental belief. Since we live in a world of scarcity or
   natural resources it is almost automatic that we believe that there is
   a shortage of frequencies. This particular resource is somewhat
   different.
   
   This morning, let's start by reviewing this presumption of a permanent
   shortage. Let's consider how, with an application of already known
   technology, we could create even a surplus of frequencies. What may be
   going on is an inadvertent shortage created by a regulatory structure
   which has yet to appreciate the potential capabilities of the new
   digital signal processing technology as applied to communications.

Paul Baran is hardly the originator of open spectrum ideas, but the complete transcript shows he once again led the industry.