Comments on: WiFi on steroids

By: Steve Song

Steve Song — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 07:32:56 +0000

You speak as if enthusiasm were somehow anti-scientific. Well, perhaps you should “soberly” re-read your response and ask yourself who is engaging dispassionate discourse. Gushing from South Africa… Steve

By: Rohan Samarajiva

Rohan Samarajiva — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 12:17:53 +0000

The world needs both kinds Steve. You be the booster; we’ll soberly assess the applicability to the ground situation in developing countries.

And work on the preconditions as we’ve done in : http://lirneasia.net/2008/01/us-to-auction-700-mhz-spectrum-reclaimed-from-broadcasters/ and in http://lirneasia.net/2008/09/m-powering-india-mobile-communications-for-inclusive-growth/

We can gush all we want about potential but unless the transition to digital occurs it will be just words.

By: DG

DG — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 11:46:15 +0000

Freeing up the whitespace in the US will spur innovations in ways we cannot possibily conceive. More pipes reaching consumers is a good thing–more alternatives, greater competition. The White Spaces coalition is composed of tech firms that are far more nimble and innovative than telcos. They can and will eat the lunch of carriers if they can deploy new mobility services and devices on a truly open network.

Despite the “open access” mantra being chanted by telcos, they still dictate the functionality of mobile devices and the services that can be offered over their network. They will not readily ease their strangle-hold over such a lucrative bottleneck. Alternative pipes can bypass and render the bottelnecks less valuable and force telcos to play nice with other players in the value chain.

It will be at least 2-3 years before this transition occurs in the US. By then who knows what the state of governance and infrastructure is in this part of the world.

By: Steve Song

Steve Song — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 09:36:56 +0000

A bit of a straw man argument, Rohan. I don’t think the Economist or anyone else for that matter is a suggesting that opening up WhiteSpaces spectrum is a panacea. Surely an opportunity such as this to open new avenues for last mile connectivity deserves a little better than the damning with faint praise you give it. One might have imagined that LirneAsia would take the opportunity to advocate for access to this spectrum in Sri Lanka in anticipation of whitespace devices coming to market. Not a panacea but a pretty remarkable opportunity just the same. If not you then who? :-)