Return of CB Radio
William Lehr
Andy Lippman
wlehr@mit.edu
lip@media.mit.edu
Communications Futures Program
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
CFP Sponsor Meeting
Huawei
Biltmore Hotel, Santa Clara CA
October 24-25, 2011
© Lehr & Lippman, 2011
Return of CB (or towards the Proximal Internet)
Motivation: why/what proximal Internet
Requirements
Some multidisciplinary research questions
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Vision of a wireless future
Pervasive computing  Internet of Things  Smart everything
Competition  Innovation  Growth : virtuous cycle !
Wireless
certainly,
but does it require the Internet, or a
Mobile Service Provider?
- A: No. Does not require, but complements
To require is bad for competition, openness, robustness
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Source: Xinzhou Wu, FlashinQ presentation, May 2010
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QUALCOMM Proprietary and Confidential
Qualcomm “FlashlinQ”
Proximal Internet
Source: Xinzhou Wu, FlashinQ presentation, May 2010
“Media Swap”
In-building Automation
Control
Mobile Social Network
“Profile Matching”
“Multi-player”
Neighborhood Gaming
“Proximate Contextaware Gaming”
“Vouch” – building
3rd-party Trust Nets
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“FlashPay” – eCash
between eWallets
QUALCOMM Proprietary and Confidential
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Real and Virtual Worlds
Real
Zigbee
BlueTooth
WiFi
FlashlinQ
Internet
3G/4G
Fixed broadband
-----------------------
Radio
Virtual
Near ------------------
Range
------------------ Far
-- tech allows us to virtualize the real world
-- where the boundary is, is a design decision!
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Some questions this vision raises
Q: To merge the real/virtual worlds – do we need a new radio? Is
something like FlashlinQ the kind of radio we need?
- A: Something like this is worth experimenting with at scale,
but this is only one possible path (and maybe far from best)
Q: How closely (and where/how in architecture) should we
merge real/virtual worlds?
-A: Lots of policy, user acceptance, business model issues here
Q: Assuming we need a new radio and FlashlinQ is a good place
to start, what needs to happen to get the ball rolling?
- A: What we hope to investigate…
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Return of CB: Proximal Radio Requirements
Features: “as easy to use, as available, as cheap as CB Radio”
-- Anyone can buy and use to communicate (point-to-point(s), link-layer)
without requiring a subscription (“unlicensed”).
-- Works without an infrastructure network.
But, functionality/flexibility limited
-- Not data/m2m friendly.
-- Not flexible architecture for radio (business models or policy)
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Technical Requirements for Proximal Internet
“Moving through sea of connectivity and resources, sensing what
is available and communicating peer-to-peer with resources”
Discovery: what devices are proximal? “Aura-Sense”
- Shared medium (air=sound, smell, light=vision)  RF
- Always on  automatic, continuous, passive, energy efficient
- Scalable  1000s of devices ( Spectral efficiency)
Communicate: point-to-point (any-to-any) links, proximally
- Range (~1km but not ~5km)  “Local” ( Mobility)
- Capacity (kbps-10 Mbps but not 100Mbps+)
- Secure communication  Private
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Radio flexibility & Spectrum Management
Q: Does radio need to live in licensed spectrum (as FLQ)?
- aka, protected/protocol-constrained (non-technology neutral)
- But, not assigned to operator as exclusive-licensed (which not open)
- how to have flexibility of unlicensed (business model) with
interference protection/availability of licensed (technical/protocol)?
Q: If we need a “Proximal Radio” Band, how to get there?
- need for international harmonization (scale economics) v. stagnation
- candidate bands? Below 3GHz – TV bands?? FRS/CB??
- mobilizing policy debate: public safety? Killer app? Niche focus?
Q: Relationship to Dynamic Spectrum Access (DSA) vision?
- aka, Cognitive/software defined/”waveform” agile radios
- with shared spectrum, decoupling of RF/radio/service
- Is Proximal Radio a new “narrow waist” for Internet?
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End-user control, silo apps, and platform design
Proximal radio : allow end-user to learn about resources in
environment and selectively communicate with them
Q: Who controls what is sensed?
- aka, is this sensing or surveillance?
- is giving user choice really a choice?
Q: Do different domains require different defaults?
- e.g., health info v. “just-in-time” coupons
- if yes, who manages the virtualization? What’s the platform?
- what is the “killer app” (domain) to get the ball rolling?
- how do we get these radios into the hands of users?
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Public safety v. Retail (coupons) v. Health (monitoring)
Value proposition
- who pays?: public good v. ad support v. bundled niche app
- when/how used?: Rare v. daily; necessity of ubiquity?
- $ benefit/cost margin
Value-chain structure
- who adopts? consumer v. business; B2C v. B2B
- regulatory/institutional?
User experience
- push/pull/ambient, automated v. manual mode
- experience, not search good (?) : learning
- social/network, not individual (?): influencers
- etc.
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Summing up…
Proximal Internet is key to value chain growth opportunities
A new radio is needed, a new kind of CB …
Qualcomm’s FLQ puts a worthy stake in the ground
BUT lots of research questions …
-- What’s the right spectrum management model?
-- Implications of new radio platform for Internet arch?
-- How will pervasive computing change our lives?
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Further reading
Chapin, J. and W. Lehr, 2011. Mobile Broadband Growth, Spectrum
Scarcity, and Sustainable Competition, 39th Research Conference on
Communications, Information and Internet Policy (www.tprcweb.com),
Alexandria, VA, September 2011. (pdf) (slides)
Corson, M. S., R. Laroia, L. Junyi, V. Park, T. Richardson, and G. Tsirtsis,
2010. Toward proximity-aware internetworking, Wireless
Communications, IEEE 17, 26-33.
Lippman, A. 2011. Proximal Radio, MIT Media Lab.
Weiser, M., 1991. The computer for the 21st century, Scientific American
265, 94-104.
Wu, X., 2010, FlashLinQ: A clean slate design for ad hoc networks,
presentation slides, (slides)
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