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With wireless you can't just keep increasing capacity forever. The problem is that there is a theoretical limit to how wireless infrastructure can be improved.

by bodski 16y ago

With wireless you can't just keep increasing capacity forever. The problem is that there is a theoretical limit to how wireless infrastructure can be improved. Sure, new generations of wireless tech. are improving the bandwidth available every few years. But RF frequency bands are a limited resource and sooner or later Shannon-Hartley's theorem [1] will dictate that the only way to improve bandwidth will be to increase power levels received at user's antennae (either by increasing effective transmission power or clustering cells more densely). But doing this will deliver ever diminishing (logarithmic) gains and an increasing public health risk associated with increased RF levels. Couple that with the fact that wireless is going to be the Internet in the coming decades (for many youngsters it already is) and you are faced with a problem of how to allocate things fairly. Wired Internet resources on the other hand can be upgraded effectively forever. If the demand is there we can keep laying new fibre whilst maximising the existing lines with new modulation techniques etc. The same cannot be said of wireless technology. It is precisely because of these major contention issues that wireless spectrum should be protected under net neutrality regulations, its need of regulation is in fact greater than that of wired Internet. When there is an approaching hard limit to bandwidth available why would we want to allow the parties with the biggest wallets dominate the traffic? It is precisely these sorts of situations that governments are for, without them monopolies will naturally form at the expense of the populace. Imagine if governments around the world said, let's solve (or rather ignore) the problem of car traffic congestion by allowing employers to bid for priority access to the roads on behalf of their employees, and businesses to bid on behalf of their customers, even though everyone has already paid their own car tax, fuel etc. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon%E2%80%93Hartley_theorem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon%E2%80%93Hartley_theorem

Charuru 16y ago
I see, but what about the fundamental problem of bandwidth scarcity? If it's not the market that allocates, is there a fairer way?
- Ardit20 16y ago
  Yes, everyone shares the bandwidth. Google has loads of money so it can buy loads of bandwidth but the next google might not so the next google won't come to be. Why is it so bad to simply not have net prioritization at all. I mean, I can access all sites conveniently and I am not really annoyed that they are slow right now. If bandwidth was prioritized however, whether over wireless or anything else, then some sites would be great, some sites would not, and eventually the internet would become like the telly where you need loads of money to establish yourself.
- bodski 16y ago
  The market already allocates the bandwidth! Consumers pay for varying levels of service with bigger usage caps for higher prices etc. The content providers pay for their bandwidth at the other end (or the big ones enter 'tiering agreements' etc.) As demand increases for wireless bandwidth, prices may rise to reflect the supply shortfall. At points this will hit an equilibrium level and demand will cease to rise. At other points new technology will increase supply etc. At some point in the future we will likely hit a fairly final equilibrium. As long as governments maintain a level of competition in the market (something they are generally not doing very well right now I admit) we could avoid price fixing cartels between the carriers. We just have to face it, wireless RF spectrum is a shared finite resource nothing we do will ever overcome this fundamental truth. No amount of financial manipulation of the market business models by the carriers will ever change this. If I want to get priority access over others I should pay for it! Allowing content providers to bid for priority reduces consumers freedom to choose what they are able to access. Problem is, a lot of people these days will take free over paying a premium even when their freedom is removed. Imagine say Verizon et al get their way and say for simplicity's sake 10 big content providers manage to achieve the overall bandwidth priority between them on most networks. People accessing other content will likely become frustrated with smaller services and migrate their usage to the services offered by these 'big 10'. Eventually most people use these prioritised services and small sites/startups just don't get a look in. However nothing has changed with regard to bandwidth, there is now the same contention just that a small number of providers have managed to dominate the market. The carriers are making loads of extra money for doing effectively nothing, all they have done is played the content providers off against each other and against the consumers (and pocketed lots of money in the process). It seems to effectively amount to extortion. Allowing prioritising of traffic based on provider will not likely reduce prices for data contracts for consumers. The same issues of bandwidth contention will arise, except that this time the carriers are able to effectively blackmail content providers. The big content providers may see themselves as able to profit from this scenario, the smaller ones won't stand a chance. In the long, long term lets hope quantum entanglement based communication allows us to leave RF behind!

by bodski 16y ago

Charuru 16y ago

I see, but what about the fundamental problem of bandwidth scarcity? If it's not the market that allocates, is there a fairer way?

Ardit20 16y ago
Yes, everyone shares the bandwidth. Google has loads of money so it can buy loads of bandwidth but the next google might not so the next google won't come to be. Why is it so bad to simply not have net prioritization at all. I mean, I can access all sites conveniently and I am not really annoyed that they are slow right now. If bandwidth was prioritized however, whether over wireless or anything else, then some sites would be great, some sites would not, and eventually the internet would become like the telly where you need loads of money to establish yourself.
bodski 16y ago
The market already allocates the bandwidth! Consumers pay for varying levels of service with bigger usage caps for higher prices etc. The content providers pay for their bandwidth at the other end (or the big ones enter 'tiering agreements' etc.) As demand increases for wireless bandwidth, prices may rise to reflect the supply shortfall. At points this will hit an equilibrium level and demand will cease to rise. At other points new technology will increase supply etc. At some point in the future we will likely hit a fairly final equilibrium. As long as governments maintain a level of competition in the market (something they are generally not doing very well right now I admit) we could avoid price fixing cartels between the carriers. We just have to face it, wireless RF spectrum is a shared finite resource nothing we do will ever overcome this fundamental truth. No amount of financial manipulation of the market business models by the carriers will ever change this. If I want to get priority access over others I should pay for it! Allowing content providers to bid for priority reduces consumers freedom to choose what they are able to access. Problem is, a lot of people these days will take free over paying a premium even when their freedom is removed. Imagine say Verizon et al get their way and say for simplicity's sake 10 big content providers manage to achieve the overall bandwidth priority between them on most networks. People accessing other content will likely become frustrated with smaller services and migrate their usage to the services offered by these 'big 10'. Eventually most people use these prioritised services and small sites/startups just don't get a look in. However nothing has changed with regard to bandwidth, there is now the same contention just that a small number of providers have managed to dominate the market. The carriers are making loads of extra money for doing effectively nothing, all they have done is played the content providers off against each other and against the consumers (and pocketed lots of money in the process). It seems to effectively amount to extortion. Allowing prioritising of traffic based on provider will not likely reduce prices for data contracts for consumers. The same issues of bandwidth contention will arise, except that this time the carriers are able to effectively blackmail content providers. The big content providers may see themselves as able to profit from this scenario, the smaller ones won't stand a chance. In the long, long term lets hope quantum entanglement based communication allows us to leave RF behind!