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Estimates say that web hypertext (and assorted MIME files) accounts for only 0.2% of the data available on the internet. The rest sits "behind forms" in databases and other non-http servers. As part of telegraph, we're studying how to leverage that data.
Telegraph is an adaptive dataflow system, which allows individuals and institutions to access, combine, analyze, and otherwise benefit from this data wherever it resides. As a dataflow system, Telegraph can tap into pooled data stored on the network, and harness streams of live data coming out of networked sensors, software, and smart devices. In order to operate robustly in this volatile, internetworked world, Telegraph is adaptive -- it uses new technologies such as rivers and eddies to route unpredictable and bursty dataflows through computing resources on a network, resulting in a steady, manageable stream of useful information.
Context, particularly location, is an important source of information for human-computer interaction. In our project, we examine hardware, networking, and systems issues for a location sensing infrastructure. We present a thorough empirical analysis of the TinyOS RF motes."In 2010 MEMS sensors will be everywhere, and sensing virtually everything. Scavenging power from sunlight, vibration, thermal gradients, and background RF, sensors motes will be immortal, completely self contained, single chip computers with sensing, communication, and power supply built in. Entirely solid state, and with no natural decay processes, they may well survive the human race. Descendants of dolphins may mine them from arctic ice and marvel at the extinct technology."
• E.g., The communications scheme is based on ultra- wideband (UWB)
technology.
– UWB emits rapid sequencing of extremely short (< 1ns)
wideband (> 1 GHz) low power bursts of radio frequency energy.
• UWB
system will reduce power, mass and volume over conventional communications
systems.
– Analysis has predicted that data can be transferred over a 10
mile range at a T1 rate on 56 mW of average power.
• UWB system is software
controlled and reconfigurable in real time to perform different functions as
needed.
"Moore’s law" is catching up to telecom, and the result isn’t going to be
pretty for the telcos.
Consider instant gigabit communications with NO
ONE in control of it. If these things create distributed networks on the
fly then every highway with enough traffic density and enough of these things in
cars becomes an intercity multi-gigabit communication channel. Even at 900 MHz
you can get a citywide data network.
That's fascinating -- a "cellular" phone network without towers or other infrastructure. If there were enough of these things scattered around an area, they could (theoretically) all be in communication with each other, providing mobile phone and data service, at least among themselves, with NO company getting any per-minute dollars!
Of course that's improbable -- right? There are lots of technical reasons why this couldn't feasibly work.
Just like, a few years ago, nobody could imagine a pervasive, flexible data network that would turn many established ways of doing business topsy-turvy, change the landscape of the most successful companies on the planet, and rewrite the rules for commerce -- all within a few years.
Now, add the potential of fledgling nanotechnologies into this mix, spawning
a swarm of tiny dirt-cheap devices (literally) scattered across the landscape,
each providing communications relay services. Suddenly, their collectively
providing a pervasive wireless network
might not seem so impossible after
all!
But don't worry -- such industry-shaking changes could never occur. Again. Could they?
PRINCIPLES FOR SPECTRUM POLICY REFORM
Today the American people
collectively own the most valuable resource in the emerging information economy:
the airwaves, also known as the electromagnetic spectrum. Auctions conducted
last year in Europe and early this year in the U.S. suggest that spectrum
occupied by commercial licensees has a market value well in excess of $300
billion. Unfortunately, while high bids by wireless phone companies should be a
boon to the ordinary citizens who own the airwaves, high prices also evidence a
policy-induced spectrum shortage that threatens to delay the widespread
availability and affordability of wireless broadband services.
In short, Americans are prisoners of an outdated industrial policy. We are trapped somewhere between the outmoded central-planning approach that characterized Federal Communications Commission (FCC) policy until the mid-1990s, and a new more flexible and market-based approach which, unfortunately, applies only to mobile wireless services. Most of the spectrum is still rigidly “zoned” for exclusive use by industries (viz., broadcasters, private two-way radio services, satellite and fixed wireless services) that pay nothing to use this increasingly scarce and valuable public asset. This outdated zoning and giveaway policy both fails to use a more flexible market mechanism to allocate spectrum and neglects to charge rent to all commercial licensees. This has produced the worst possible outcome: a spectrum shortage, no incentives for efficient use, government picking “winners” and “losers” among industries, and the forfeiture of tens of billions in public revenue.
This paper answers the question Senator John McCain asked FCC Chairman
Michael Powell at the latter’s confirmation hearing in May: “What principles do
you think should guide the FCC in its decision-making” with respect to competing
demands for spectrum? In considering principles to guide spectrum reform, it is
important to recognize that policymakers face both an immediate and a long-term
challenge concerning management of this increasingly valuable public asset.
< http://www.newamerica.net/Download_Docs/pdfs/Pub_File_610_1.pdf>
SPECTRUM DROUGHT
One of the last actions of the (second) Clinton
era was a proposal to the FCC to create a "secondary market" for spectrum.
Basically, a spectrum-holder would be able to sublease spectrum to other users
without a lengthy and expensive negotiation with the FCC. If a
company has
rights to use spectrum in the U.S., those rights would include the ability to
offer it to other companies to use. Such secondary markets would be a boon to
smaller service providers that could not afford to compete in spectrum auctions,
but could afford to pay some reasonable fee for use of licensed spectrum.
Another FCC initiative was to begin serious discussion about "software defined radios" (SDRs) — basically wireless systems that would be "smart" enough to change their behavior based on spectrum conditions. Such behavior might include analyzing what spectrum is in use in the SDR’s immediate area, and — if broadband spectrum — perhaps a television broadcast channel in a very rural area — is available for use, the unit could reconfigure itself to make use of that spectrum. If transmissions are heard, then the unit makes other choices — perhaps use of license-exempt spectrum.
NEAR FUTURE TECHNOLOGIES
ArrayComm is developing a very promising
technology that, in effect, steers high-speed wireless connections to individual
users. ArrayComm hopes to offer 1 Mbps connections to semi-stationary users —
not suitable for moving vehicles, but works well for pedestrians — and the
signal acquisition process is expected to take a few seconds at most.
Ultra-Wideband (UWB) technology, of which the most prominent vendor is Time
Domain, exhibits incredible promise. Basically, UWB is "ultimate spread
spectrum" — spreading a wireless signal across a very wide slice of spectrum,
and doing so at very low power. UWB
technology can, theoretically, share
spectrum with other services. Many entrenched wireless communications suppliers,
service providers and even government agencies are fighting hard against
allowing UWB to become widely used in the U.S. It seems likely that UWB will be
deployed widely in other countries before broad deployment in North America.
Aperto Networks and Malibu Networks are only two of a number of "next
generation" broadband wireless systems manufacturers that will offer highly
integrated broadband wireless systems in 2001. Both companies have rethought the
problem of broadband wireless
Internet access and have tightly integrated a
number of disparate wireless technologies. As a result, their systems look very
promising, not only for conventional Internet access, but also sufficient
quality of service and service differentiation to provide usable television over
IP, voice over IP, videoconferencing and other services.
Finally, when considering these issues, keep in mind that spectrum is not a finite resource. Spectrum is entirely a creation of technology. Therefore, if the need were to arise — as it likely will if wireless technology continues to grow at an exponential rate — more spectrum can be created with the use of increasingly sophisticated wireless technology.
Though this is not currently a reality, it could play an important part in
the future of the wireless industry as the current wireless resources are
depleted.
< http://program.intel.com/solutions/shared/en/resource/insight/techtrends/ecosystems.htm
>
Conclusion: Spectrum Management
The need for setting ground rules
for how people use the radio spectrum will not disappear. We need to make sure
adequate spectrum exists to accommodate the rapid growth in existing services as
well as new applications of this national and international resource. Even with
new technologies such as software-defined radios and ultra-wideband microwave
transmission, concerns about interference will continue (and perhaps grow) and
the need for defining licensees and other users' rights will continue to be a
critical function of the government. We will thus continue to conduct auctions
of available spectrum to speed introduction of new services.
In order to protect the safety of life and property, we must also continue to
consider public safety needs as new spectrum-consuming technologies and
techniques are deployed. (See: "New Approaches for Public Protection Against
Chemical and Biological Agents"
< http://www-bsac.eecs.berkeley.edu/~warneke/pubs/cbnp_workshop-summary.html>)
References
1) CITRIS - to solve large-scale societal problems
affecting the quality of life, such as the energy shortage.
< http://citris.berkeley.edu >
2)
TinyOS - a self-organizng managing concurrent two-way active
messaging and multi-hop ad-hoc sensing/actuator and routing networks for
flow-thru communications instead of wait-command-respond. Combining sensing,
communications, and computation into a single architecture. Ehe application
consists of a number of sensors distributed within a localized area. They
monitor the
temperature and light conditions and periodically transmit their
measurements to a central base station. Each sensor not only acts as a data
source, but it may also forward data for sensors that are out of range of the
base station. < http://sourceforge.net/projects/tinyos
>
< http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~kubitron/courses/cs252-F00/projects/reports/project6_report.pdf>
3) 'Smart dust' to the energy rescue - aimed at putting a
complete sensing/communication platform inside a cubic
millimeter, including
power supply, analog and digital electronics, etc. Thousands or millions of
these dust motes will all communicate simultaneously. Applications are all over
the map. Instrumented hospital rooms so that your syringe knows if you're the
right patient or not, instrumented bodies so that we can all participate in 3D
virtual ballet, instrumented atmosphere so we can predict weather.
< http://www.medserv.no/article.php?sid=261
>
< http://www-bsac.eecs.berkeley.edu/~warneke/pubs/packaging2001.ppt
>
4) "New Approaches for Public Protection Against Chemical and
Biological Agents" - the Smart Dust project is designing devices that will
cause massively distributed sensor networks to not only be rapidly deployed, but
also nearly vanish into the environment. The
capabilities of such
systems will dramatically change the way in which chemical and biological agent
detection is performed before, during, and after and attack These networks
will provide more detailed information, more rapidly, and from more locations
than previously possible.
< http://www-bsac.eecs.berkeley.edu/~warneke/pubs/cbnp_workshop-summary.html>
5) Cal-(IT)2 - a Wireless Sensor Network Testbed Proposed to Monitor
Pollution
< http://www.soe.ucsd.edu/news_events/news_2000/cal_it2proposal.pdf
>
6) Telegraph project - an adaptive dataflow system being
developed at UC Berkeley for Federated Facts and Figures
< http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~brewer/cs262/cs262proj.html
>
7) Migrating Toward the Intelligent Device Bill of Rights
< http://www.jacksons.net/tac/FCC-%20TAC%20-%20SDR%20and%20SM%20reg-27Sep00-v1.ppt
>
8) Folkstone Designs: Simple Synergies < http://www.folkstone.ca/wireless.html
>