Wes Felter said this a few days ago:I have to admit that I'm skeptical of the whole Open Spectrum thing. Is there no limit to wireless capacity or is there a really large limit? If I pile up a thousand radio-of-the-future gizmos all trying to talk to each other, what actually happens? And how much do these whiz-bang smart radios of the future cost, anyway? Damn these sensible questions. I wish someone would answer him in a way that would reassure me. Is this going to turn out to be just the latest in a series of utopian visions that always seem "right around the corner" but never quite get here? Maybe there's some purpose in that.
Still, I believe this story for the minute. Once we start building radios out of software, our radio devices (cellphones, wireless computers...) will be able to reconfigure themselves on the fly, not just maximizing potential network capacity over a given area, but actually increasing it as the number of devices on the network increases. How does it do this? Unlike now, where your radio is sending and receiving signals with special devices that form the network (cellphone towers, wireless base stations...,) the new whiz-bang network will be made up of the devices themselves, which are now so smart that nearby devices can automatically configure themselves into networks without the help of centralized infrastructure (cell phone towers and telco computers,) and then route traffic for the network in the background, while still serving their original function as clients on the network.
But yeah, you have to wonder, will that really work? I just mean technically, to start. After that there's the little issue about nobody making any money from such a network. And don't forget the billions of dollars invested in present day non whiz-bang networks.
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Still, I believe this story for the minute. Once we start building radios out of software, our radio devices (cellphones, wireless computers...) will be able to reconfigure themselves on the fly, not just maximizing potential network capacity over a given area, but actually increasing it as the number of devices on the network increases. How does it do this? Unlike now, where your radio is sending and receiving signals with special devices that form the network (cellphone towers, wireless base stations...,) the new whiz-bang network will be made up of the devices themselves, which are now so smart that nearby devices can automatically configure themselves into networks without the help of centralized infrastructure (cell phone towers and telco computers,) and then route traffic for the network in the background, while still serving their original function as clients on the network.
But yeah, you have to wonder, will that really work? I just mean technically, to start. After that there's the little issue about nobody making any money from such a network. And don't forget the billions of dollars invested in present day non whiz-bang networks.
- jim 1-25-2003 3:12 am