John Wilson
Open Spectrum UK (bio)

John Wilson, Open Spectrum UK: Some Questions for the Wireless Future - An investigation into Future Wireless.

The future horizon promises a ubiquitous IP communications environment of instant access and innovative business and everyday uses, with wireless playing a key role in the brave new converged world.

The Cybersalon and Open Spectrum UK conference FUTURE WIRELESS: Pracical.discourse.creative at the Science Museum's Dana Centre, 4 October 2005 scans the horizon of wireless communications and explores its emerging landscape ecology to present an investigation into Future Wireless.

We present three parallel strands of programming – practical, discourse and creative – with a mix of presentation, demonstration, practical workshop, artistic intervention and debate, to demonstrate and probe the nature, impact and potential of the wireless Internet, mobile telecommunications and other radio-based technologies.

Entering the phase space of wireless communications
We bring together an international gathering of technlogists, developers, industry players, artists, academics and activists to share perspectives across the sectoral and disciplinary divides.

Our visions and strategies as we enter the phase space of digital being and wireless communications? The following questions provide some initial triggers for debate. These questions are echoed throughout the conference proceedings, as we explore the current ground, immediate prospects and future horizon of wireless communications.
"The Cybernetic wireless dream? How are wireless technologies changing our personal and social spaces – or how are our personal and social spaces shaping wireless technologies?

"Wireless utopia or dystopia? Has wireless technology liberated communication or revealed a darker, more dysfunctional side to our natures?

"Broadcast or “narrowcast”? Are we moving towards a telco-centric or a user-centric world of mobile wireless communications? Can we realise the promise of the Internet as the great agora - the conversation of the many-to-many – and create an open future of decentralized communication systems and user-generated content?

"Broadband - DIFM or DIY? (do-it-for-me or do-it-yourself?) Why should you build your own free wireless network and how do you do it?

"The Invisible Wealth of Nations? Should the radio spectrum be seen as a “market commodity” or a “national resource” and what is the future of wireless communications and the strategic prospects for utilising the radio spectrum?
"Will we realize the new paradigm of a digital IP-based world predicated upon bandwidth abundance? - A world of ubiquitous communications for the empowerment of communities and user-producers? Or will we remain tethered to the incumbent telco/cableco/mobileco's closed paradigm of bandwidth scarcity, and the consumer's dependence upon their conduit/content?
" Towards Gigabit Britain? More Wi-Fi means more fibre? Gigabit to the home, gigabit on the move? Gigabit devices and gigabit core network, in search of sentient beings to connect them? Propelled by Moore's Law, Metcalfe's Law, Gilder's Law, Reed's Law and Googin's Law? Gigabit meme.
" The Global Digital Commons? - A world in which innovation, creativity and enterprise flourishes upon the foundation principles of openness - Open Networks, Open Source and Open Spectrum?
" By what r/evolutionary process do we arrive at the future communications landscape ecology? A Darwinian process of migratory strategies, or a Schumpeterian scenario of creative destruction?
Do we find a convergence of visions towards the wireless future?
Some technology observations: Towards an Open Spectrum policy?
“Open Spectrum" is the discourse of an emerging international public advocacy movement for spectrum reform, inspired by a vision of public access and technology innovation. Open Spectrum UK openspectrum.org.uk seeks to engage the public interest agenda for the exploitation of the strategic national resource of the radio spectrum. Open spectrum UK argues for a healthy mix of the commercial and the public interest, of licensed and licence-exempt access to the radio spectrum, to deliver an open future for wireless in which innovation and creativity thrive.

The radio spectrum presents the new frontier of the digital revolution, what we may call the "Invisible Wealth of Nations". Open Spectrum UK argues for a balance of the commercial and the public interest in access to and use of the radio spectrum. We need to engage wider public debate on the future of this strategic national resource. For the definition and institutionalization of the rights of access to the radio spectrum is one of the keys to our future communications ecology.