[Freedombox-discuss] This white space spectrum chip might be uninteresting

[John Gilmore]

> http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/news/2243662/white-space-spectrum-chip-approved-for-m2m-use
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/02/13/weightless_neul/
> 
> If this could somehow be incorporated in the Novena freedom box that Bdale is trying to whip up...

(0) White Space spectrum doesn't have to be used with the Weightless
chips or protocol.  The idea is that anybody can use it with any
modulation that stays within the bandplan.  Whitespace does not equal
Weightless, though they of course neglect to tell you that.

(1) this is a proprietary standard, all tied up in patents.  You
aren't allowed to know how it actually works, and you can't use it
without paying one or many patent holders (some of whom may only
surface years from now and start demanding royalties).  It's a classic
proprietary radio hardware ploy in that regard.

(2) this is low speed (14 megabits max -- but that's for two devices
sitting right next to each other in a faraday cage, I'm sure) yet it
uses large amounts of bandwidth, hundreds of megahertz).  It's
bleeding edge, and probably full of bugs and interoperability
problems.  It is the very first entrant in using "white space" and of
course later entrants are likely to be more efficient, more standard,
better debugged, cheaper, better integrated, and more open.

(3) The FCC's white space stuff is a catch-22.  You can't use this
radio spectrum until you have found out, via some out-of-band
mechanism, both exactly where you are on earth (like with a GPS chip) and
accessed some global database of what frequencies are available at
your GPS locations.  This has multiple painful results:

  *  You need a GPS.
  *  You need Internet access independent of this chip.
  *  You need to contact a centralized service, and tell it your GPS location.
  *  Your communication can easily be censored by either pressuring or
     spoofing that centralized service, or by cutting off your
     Internet access so you can't find out what frequencies to use.
     Not to mention spoofing your GPS.
  *  Your use of the spectrum can be remotely monitored by monitoring
     the centralized service (who checks in from what locations).  And
     since the centralized service is proprietary and/or government
     provided, it will probably also require some kind of "credential"
     that proves you have paid your "licensing fees" or some such,
     which can also be used to identify your device uniquely.  Even if
     they *don't* feed you bad results based on your identity, they
     will know where you are and that you are using device #
     123-456-789-1011 there, consistently over a period of years.  If
     you bought device 123-456-789-1011 with a credit card or had it
     delivered to an address, those records will be available to
     inquisitive totalitarian governments, tying the device to 
     an individual person and their whole dossier.

All of these suck for a FreedomBox.  What we would want is a
communications medium that anyone can use, anyone can build into
devices, with public specs, that uses scarce bandwith efficiently, and
that you can just turn on and start using immediately to talk between
two nodes (or among two hundred nodes) that wish to communicate.
Weightless ain't that.  WiFi is much closer, particularly as its
early patents expire.

Oh, and:

  *  White space communication is illegal everywhere except the United
     States.  While I think we certainly need protection from the US
     government, there are also lots of other governments that are
     egregious at suppressing basic human rights.  We should build stuff
     that works worldwide.

For more details, see the documents here:

  http://www.weightless.org/media/resources

	John