Archive for the 'All Things Open' Category

Opening Spectrum Above 275GHz

Published
by
Steve Song
on 8 October 2008
in All Things Open, Telecom Policy and spectrum
. 0 Comments

As I am getting my head around spectrum issues, I have found Michael Marcus’s blog, Spectrum Talk, tremendously useful. On the weekend he posted a link to a consultation that Ofcom (the UK communications regulator) have launched consultation on the possibility of of making license-exempt the bandwidth between 275GHz and 3000GH.

Excerpted from Ofcom doc - click on image to download full PDF

Excerpted from Ofcom doc - click on image to download full PDF

The rationale for declaring this range of bandwidth a “commons” is that the propagation characteristics of this range of bandwidth are such that any device would have fairly limited line-of-sight range.  This range of bandwidth is prone to atmospheric loss and does not travel well through solid objects.  Thus, the chances of interference among devices is minimised.  Also, the large range of bandwidth that Ofcom are proposing to open up would also reduce the chances of interference.

The motivation for this proposal are two-fold.  On the one hand, opening this range of spectrum to the commons reduces the regulatory management overhead for Ofcom.  On the other hand, and for me more interestingly, Ofcom have explicitly recognised the potential for innovation in unlicensed spectrum.  Specifically, they say:

“By removing regulatory overheads, the release of the spectrum in the 275-3000 GHz may encourage innovation and the emergence of new applications of value to citizens and consumers. Potential new applications for this band include short range anti-collision radar devices, detection of skin cancer and other non destructive evaluation methods used in industrial processes. However, given that it is unclear at this stage which applications will be successful and when this will happen, it is difficult to estimate the economic benefits to citizens and consumers.”
(text bolding added by me)

Recognising a spectrum commons as a source of innovation, in my opinion, is a very important step for any regulator.  These are the kinds of discussions that need to start happening now in South Africa but equally in emerging markets in general.  Spectrum is a complex area that demands as much technical as economic expertise to understand how it may be most effectively used.

Opening Spectrum in South Africa

Published
by
Steve Song
on 29 September 2008
in All Things Open and Telecom Policy
. 0 Comments

It’s time to get down to business and start developing a civil society position on spectrum management in South Africa.  The key purpose of spectrum management is to maximise the value that society gains from the radio spectrum.  That has traditionally been done in a command-and-control manner treating spectrum as a completely finite, scarce resource.  But things are changing.

The recent ruling in South Africa which effectively opened up the telecoms market to full competition, now sadly being appealed by the Department of Communications (DoC), got me thinking about “what next”. Suppose that the DoC come to its senses and abandons the appeal or perhaps a sensible judge throws the appeal out, what next? The regulator (ICASA) have a huge number of issues to address ranging from interconnection to local loop unbundling. But for me, one issue stands out after the Altech ruling and that is spectrum management. For many service providers, having an i-ECNS license will not be very meaningful if they are unable to get access to spectrum.

Given that ICASA seem unlikely to address spectrum management for at least another year, thanks to other pressing priorities, now seems like the perfect time to mobilise debate within civil society on what principles we would like to see enshrined in spectrum regulation. Certainly, there are a few issues that come to mind.

Transparency

Given the level of cronyism that has characterised the SA telecoms market in the last 15 years, embedding transparency mechanisms into spectrum regulation is a highly attractive proposition but not one that is by any means a given. Building on Paul Collier’s premise that Open Standards might lead to better practice, it would be worth exploring what sorts of standards might be proposed to ICASA to ensure a fully transparent process in the allocation of spectrum.

Readiness for a Different World

As radio and computing technology continue to rapidly evolve, our ability to make more and more efficient use of spectrum increases.  Policy and regulation need to be developed so as to allow as many of the highest value users access as possible.  As technology will continually move this goalpost, regulation needs reflect this shifting environment.

Open Spectrum and Innovation

Unlicensed spectrum, in particular the 2.4 and 5Mhz bands have proven to be magnets for innovation.  Initially declared unlicensed because they were ‘garbage’ spectrum unsuitable for broadcast, they have been instrumental in enabling powerful and most importantly unpredictable innovations.  The ubiquity of WiFi in computing devices could not have happened were in not for the fact that everyone is permitted to experiment in this bandwidth.   Creating more open spectrum can only stimulate further innovation.  The Wireless Innovation Alliance championed by Google and Microsoft in the United States is an attempt to have more bandwidth set aside as open.  The debate in this area has been heated.  Now is the time to start looking at such issues in South Africa before they get captured by vested interests.

For those of you new to the “White Spaces” debate, here is a link that I picked up from Sascha Meinrath’s blog to a video produced by the People Production House in New York.  It’s a lovely introduction to the pro side of the white spaces debate.

If you’re interested in getting involved in such a debate in South Africa, I’d love to hear from you.

Open Everything in Government

Published
by
Steve Song
on 26 August 2008
in All Things Open
. 3 Comments

I attended the Open Everything (Cape Town) event on Friday.  Apart from being a masterfully facilitated workshop and an excellent opportunity to talk to other “openly” minded folk, it also featured a great interview with Aslam Jaffee, CIO of the Department of Science and Technology in the Government of South Africa and the current chairperson of the GITOC Open Source and Open Standards working group of the Government IT Officers Council (GITOC).  Matthew Buckland and I interviewed Aslam on his experience of establishing an Open Source, Open Standards, Open Content policy for the South African government.  Mark Surman has blogged about it and has posted a podcast of the interview that you can listen to.

Does Open Source Need To Be Government Policy?

I was somewhat skeptical of the idea of enshrining Open Source as a mandated policy in government.  It seemed a bit like mandating the eating of spinach.  You know it’s good for you but there is a natural resistance to implement something you’ve been ‘ordered’ to implement especially if it means a change from the status quo.  It also seemed to me that good policy follows practice and not so much the other way round.

Having said that I was impressed by Aslam’s presentation and it may be that in the case of South Africa at least, that having an Open Source/Standards/Content policy is a good thing.  The policy states that the government will use Open Source unless there is a compelling reason not to.  This obviously provides a lot of leeway as it is conceivable to write a software specification to suit almost any particular piece of software.  However, it does ensure that at the very least a dialogue needs to take place in each case as to the merits of Open Source.  This alone is a very positive step.

It is interesting that Open Source, Open Standards, and Open Content have been bundled together in the policy.  I am in two minds as to the wisdom of having all of those issues in a single policy document.  On the one hand, I can see how, given the opportunity, one might want to pack as much openness into a policy as possible.  On the other, they are each complex issues in their own right and deserve treatment on their own merits.  In particular, I think Open Standards deserves to be the absolute, non-negotiable backbone of procurement policy whereas I think the dialogue-driven tone they have struck with Open Source is probably about right.  Open Content is a different kettle of fish again and appears to be directly at odds, at least in spirit, with the Intellectual Property legislation currently being tabled in parliament.

Flavours of Openness

What does Open Source in government really mean?  Aslam mentioned at least three broad categories.  Open at the server, open at the desktop, and open at the application level.   He pointed out that the South African government has been using Open Source software for its mail and web servers for many years.  Further, there is work underway by a couple of departments (the CSIR and the Department of Science and Technology) to roll-out Ubuntu on user desktops.  However, in the area of large scale corporate applications not much has happened yet.

While I think there are compelling reasons to deploy Open Source desktops and mail and web servers, I think the real opportunity for Open Source in Government lies at the application level.  Governments around the world face similar challenges at the national, provincial, and local levels.  As the trend towards e-services grows within government, one cannot help but wonder how much duplication is taking place around the world in the development of applications to deliver services, whether government-to-citizen, government-to-business, or government to government.

The Frontier for Open Source in Government

Many initiatives claim to be Open Source but fail in significant ways.  The Brazilian government’s Department of Health is a great example of this.  They have developed a comprehensive health information management system which is theoretically Open Source but only available through governments i.e. the Brazilian government may privately offer the software to the South African government.  This strategy may give the Brazilian government a comforting sense of control but it substantially reduces the chances that any other government will ever implement this software.  Perhaps this is not a tragedy from a Brazilian perspective but think of all the lost opportunities for Ministries of Health around the world.  What this strategy misses out on are the many health information system developers around the world who could potentially contribute to this project.

Consider by comparison, an initiative such as OpenMRS.  OpenMRS is a community-developed, open-source, enterprise electronic medical record system framework.  Thanks to its modular design and a robust, open API, OpenMRS lends itself to flexible extension into a variety of more specific applications.  Government support for flexible core applications like OpenMRS could transform the way that applications are developed to support government services.

A powerful step any government could take would be to get behind independent, transparent, community-driven Open Source initiatives like OpenMRS to support the development of common, open applications for effectively delivery of government services.

Open Hardware for Development

Published
by
Steve Song
on 14 August 2008
in All Things Open and Village Telco
. 3 Comments

In my last post I wrote a bit about what kinds of information and communication technologies are needed by the poor.  I have also written about the importance of tinkering and tinkerable technologies as a catalyst for innovation.

My previous experience has led me to believe that tinkerable technologies like Linksys WRT routers running open firmware like OpenWRT can play an important role in spurring the development and deployment of appropriate connectivity solutions in developing countries.

The Linksys WRT54G and its successors are remarkable in that they surprisingly rugged and difficult to “brick“.  They can run on anything from 5 to 20 volts and have a surprising amount of processing power for a simple access point.  People have adapted these routers to become, among other things, small PBXes, firewalls, and traffic shaping tools.  With a little bit of effort these devices can be tuned to draw less power making them more suitable for use with solar power energy sources.

So for the last few years I have been quite taken with the idea of finding and re-purposing commodity information and communication technologies developed for wealthy, consumer markets and adapting them as appropriate communication infrastructure.  Now, however, my point of view has changed somewhat, partly as a result of meeting David Rowe and in particular in conversations with him and others at the Village Telco workshop. David pointed out that wonderful as the Linksys routers are, we put up with numerous constraints e.g. limited memory space, limited interfaces, higher than desired power consumption, lack of surge protection on some interfaces, non-ruggedised housings, etc. where perhaps we don’t have to.

This took a little mental digestion on my part and, at the time, I was reluctant to give up the beloved Linksys.  However as things turned out the workshop led us to look at other technologies such as the Ubiquiti Nanostation and even to the point of coming up with plans to design our own hardware, the Mesh Potato.

Until I met David, I would have said that designing and putting customised hardware into production was a beautiful idea but not very practical.  Indeed, at first glance the OLPC appears to be a direct cautionary tale about the dangers of trying to do just that.  However, David has already done it successfully on a small scale.  He has designed and put into production an embedded Asterisk IP PBX.  One of the things that is most interesting about his project is that, as a result of publishing the hardware design and schematics under an open license on the Internet, manufacturers in Shenzen found David, not the other way round!

I think we are at the confluence of a number of trends:

  • the trend towards standardisation in manufacture and chip design;
  • the increasing integration of functions into single chips;
  • the move toward placing more and more hardware functionality in the ’soft’ firmware of devices;  and,
  • the increasing commoditisation of design tools.

In addition, because Open Source firmware is becoming increasingly common and the community of developers is growing, this means that a lone developer such as David Rowe can develop a fully functional hardware PBX whereas in 1978 it would have taken 20 or more engineers.

I believe this means that it is conceivable for appropriate, useful communication hardware for poor communities to be designed and put into production on a small but sustainable scale by small groups of experts but not necessarily experts employed by Nokia, Intel, etc.  I think this opens the potential for innovation of new technologies for markets not currently served by large corporations.  Ideally, these innovations would then be picked up and improved upon by large corporations, a bit like what has happened with the OLPC.

With one significant difference.  The OLPC chose to patent the new technology it developed and use the revenue gained from licensing those patents to fund further development.  There is a case to be made for this strategy.  However, it does not appear to have helped them make friends with the likes of Intel, Microsoft, and others.  One cannot help but wonder whether a focus on core innovations needed in a developing country context and an Open Hardware approach might not have helped them partner more successfully.

It is interesting to note that Pixel Qi, the company spun off by former OLPC CTO Mary Lou Jepsen, are also basing their success on standardisation of manufacture.  This from their products page:

“Pixel Qi is a fabless ASIC company that specializes in screens.  The screen is just a big ASIC chip - we work closely with the large LCD factories.  The trick - we use their standard processes and materials and can produce new screens with radical new performance in about a year.  We are not a demo in a year,  but rather we can get all the way to high volume mass production in a year.”

Pixel Qi are licensing OLPC’s patents.  I wonder how many “Pixel Qi”s might exist if designs for that technology were published under an open license, open to contribution from universities and companies around the world interested in developing technology for the poor?  I’d sure like to find out.  Stand by for news of the Mesh Potato.

Information and Communication Technologies for the Poor

Published
by
Steve Song
on 7 August 2008
in All Things Open and Village Telco
. 3 Comments
Nokia 1100 - Wikipedia

Nokia 1100 - Courtesy Wikipedia

An ongoing conversation with a large foundation has inspired me to think more directly about what specific technologies stand the best chance of benefiting the poor.  Early on in the conversation, I made the point that “connectedness” alone actually counts for a lot.  Most people involved in information technologies over the last 10-15 years, whether in the developed or developing world, have at one time or another learned the hard lesson that “build it and they will come” is more the exception than the rule.  Yet mobile phones have proven a pretty reliable exception with the result that Africa, one of the poorest regions in the world,  is the fastest growing mobile market in the world.  A testament to the importance of being connected and to the power of simple voice communication.  So, I am prepared to say that simply driving down the cost of access and increasing ubiquity of access to voice communication is a worthwhile goal in development.  Mobile phones improve lives and livelihoods.  We know this.

We also know that in Africa access to voice telephony is overpriced and scarcest where people are poorest.  What can be done to drive down the cost of access?  Nokia and other handset manufacturers have made a point of trying to develop phones that are developing country friendly.  The Nokia 1100 handset was designed for developing countries.  After selling over 200 million units, it has become the best selling handset in the world.  As Ken Banks of Kiwanja.net points out in a recent PC World article, “they’re sturdy with a sealed keypad, have good battery life, the user interface is easy, and they’re cheap (originally selling for around $40 new, for example, but now available for easily half of that in second-hand markets)”.  Hard to beat.  Unfortunately that is just one link in the chain.

Cheap phones do not equal cheap access.

The real cost of access lies in the usage charges.  Granted, this is mitigated somewhat by the caller-pays system which is standard in the developing world and which often allows communications costs to be subsidized by those who can most afford the communication charges.  Yet this is not the solution.  The solution lies in increasing competition in the provision of access.  Improving policy and regulatory frameworks to allow more competition is essential to driving down the cost of access.  Equally important is driving down the cost of network infrastructure so that the cost of market entry opens up to more entrepreneurs.  This is more or less what the Village Telco is aimed at.  Solutions that support vendor lock-in and perpetuate the supply-chain of incumbent mobile networks are not going to solve the problem.

Voice is no longer enough

As Ken points out in his article, the Nokia 1100 and phones like them designed for the developing world have “no GPRS, no browser, no Java, no camera, no color screen — the very technologies that form the linchpin of our plans to promote the mobile phone as the tool to help close the digital divide.”   He goes on to make a plea to divert “international development funding toward providing a subsidized, fully Internet-ready handset for developing markets.”  I think this is a brilliant idea except for the word “subsidy”.  When donors provide subsidies to the private sector, somehow this doesn’t always turn into real benefits for the poor.  Underserviced area licenses are a great example of subsidy failure.

I can think of at two other ways of achieving this that I think stand a better chance of succeeding:

  1. Announce an X-prize or something similar for cheap, rugged, Internet-ready handsets.  Give the market a direct incentive to build something to serve the poor.
  2. Open up the design of such a device.  Sponsor an Open Hardware project to design cheap phones that support GSM, GPRS, and WiFi.  Design bounties could be offered in this case as well.  Initiatives like OpenMoko already have a headstart in this area.

Don’t Try to Figure Out What People Will Do With It

Jan Chipchase - Ted Talk

Jan Chipchase - Ted Talk

Some people will find this idea hard to digest and it does verge on the “build it and they will come” mantra but we know that people will come for voice and text services.  Let’s start by driving down the networks costs and then by adding building-block functionality for other services in order to allow innovation to happen.  As Nokia resarcher Jan Chipchase says in his excellent Ted Talk:

“However, we design this stuff, carefully design this stuff, the street will take it and will figure out ways to innovate.  As long as it meets base needs, the ability to transcend space and time for example.   It will innovate in ways we cannot anticipate in ways that despite our resources, they can do it better than us.  That’s my feeling.”

The more hackable a technology is, the more opportunity there is to tinker with it, to shape it to meet the needs of the user, the more innovation we are going to see in ICTs and development and the greater impact these technologies will have.