White Space Sensor Development

 To manage the White Spaces is a way to improve process performance of an organization(internet). White Space (management)

 The idea has always been to operate within certain frequencies in order to develop the communications needed for rural development. Sometimes,  in context of management we see where governments needed to manage these frequencies in order to be able to auction off facets of those frequencies. This is to ensure companies are safe from other developers who may damages their operations,  as well as give companies what they paid for.

 On September 23, 2010 the FCC released a Memorandum Opinion and Order that determined the final rules for the use of white space for unlicensed wireless devices.^[18] The new rules removed mandatory sensing requirements which greatly facilitates the use of the spectrum with geolocation based channel allocation. The final rules adopt a proposal from the White Spaces Coalition^[19] for very strict emission rules that prevent the direct use of IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi) in a single channel effectively making the new spectrum unusable for Wi-Fi technologies... See: FCC decision

So of course such developments need to consider the techniques used for sensors so as to be able to operate between all these frequencies.This then require services as a means to providing broadband capabilities via White Space spectrum.

White space in telecommunications refers to unused frequencies in the radio waves portion of the electromagnetic spectrum.

The latest information of Google attempts at developing communication development in Africa is of course a long road to White Space communication.

White spaces are unused channels in the broadcast TV spectrum. They offer the potential to improve Internet connectivity where they are most needed - in the developing world. Today we’re announcing the launch of a trial with ten schools in the Cape Town area, which will receive wireless broadband over a white space network.

White space has the advantage that low frequency signals can travel longer distances. The technology is well suited to provide low cost connectivity to rural communities with poor telecommunications infrastructure, and for expanding coverage of wireless broadband in densely populated urban areas. See:
Announcing a new TV White Spaces trial in South Africa

There has been some developments in terms of management with the rules and regulations with regard to that White Space development within the US, UK and Canada. This has more to do with regulations about controlling the impingement of frequencies on existing companies already using frequency white space. To ensure that any use of that White Space does not cause any disruptions with require certifications of a sort,  to demonstrate that this is such the case.

See:

•  Wireless Access Providers’ Association of South Africa 
• The Cape Town TV White Spaces Trial

I am exploring some ideas here on community development. This is so as to developed further communication formats.  These broadcast systems,  need to meet the demands of rural country deployments frequencies between tower locations,  as well as,  development of those community based broadcast system.

 While I have watch the proceeds of government working with major internet company to develop this process.  I am less then happy with the outcome of Tax dollars that have been spent to progress this development in rural country living not only Provincially, but Federally as well. IN a Federal sense there has been no accountability with this progress and money granted.

While watching Google history here, and latest development in Africa it seems it has gone far away from its home base to develop the framework. I sometimes wonder then if the community in the framework of governments is some how caused such a innovative process as a the result of that development in Africa? Of course that is speculation on my part and any success on this front pushes forward the desires of what communication can reach the far ends of the earth and bring global communication to the nourishment of every individual on this planet.

See Also:

• Consultation on a Policy and Technical Framework for the Use of Non-Broadcasting Applications in theTelevision Broadcasting Bands Below 698 MHz
•  TV White Space Devices ...and beyond!

CERN brings hardware into the open

It good to see great minds think alike?:)

The Open Hardware Repository was inspired by the success of open-source software. (Image courtesy CERN.)

Hardware and software go hand in hand – one doesn’t work without the other. Despite being so closely linked, the two industries operate very differently. For the most part, hardware is produced in isolation and product designs are concealed by manufacturers, while software is created in a largely open and collaborative environment, available for anyone to use.

Javier Serrano, a hardware designer for accelerator systems at CERN, set out to change that. Three years ago, his software design colleagues were developing device drivers – the interface between a piece of hardware and software applications – with the Linux open-source operating system. Serrano noticed that they enjoyed being part of a community where they had access to high-quality products and could seek help whenever they needed it. CERN brings hardware into the open

See Also: My Hat's Off too: Open Hardware Movement

Take Note: Make sure you check out the labels to learn some history.


Kernel (Mar 09 2006 Wikipedia)

In computer science the kernel is the core of an operating system. It is a piece of software responsible for providing secure access to the machine's hardware and to various processes (computer programs in a state of execution).

It's good to see where such thoughts originated at Cern with regard to this subject. This issue is one which I had proposed sometime ago in terms of broad band development as a non profit in order to establish some competition to what has become monopolistic control over the internet in Canada.  It is with the full compliance of the CRTC which supposedly is to represent some fairness to the internet and consumers, which it does not.

Linux (Mar 09 2006 Wikipedia)

Linux is a computer operating system and its kernel. It is one of the most prominent examples of free software and of open-source development; unlike proprietary operating systems such as Windows, all of its underlying source code is available to the public for anyone to freely use, modify, improve, and redistribute.

I was able to detect product(Bell, Shaw, Telus,) development around internet usage according to UBB, while there were still methods that these companies were "fully aware of"  back tens years ago that allowed such easy connections in terms of wireless internet?

The Cathedral and the Bizarre by Jeff Lewis(through use of Wayback Machine)

The problem there is that the 'capitalist trench' problem is just as real in OpenSource as it is in commerical product: once a group buys into a specific solution, the cost of changing grows with time. That's true even if the software is 'free' because the maintenance costs and time to convert to another solution are not

Update:New link supplied

These thoughts for me go back to the ideas around Netscape and Microsoft when Microsoft was trying to be the based software on computers placed into the market.

My Hat's Off too: Open Hardware Movement

Sir Tim, creator of the World Wide Web, pointed to open data and linked data as exciting examples of the way that the Web is promoting transparency of information and looked forward to the time when the current 20 per cent of the world’s population who can access the Web grows to 80 per cent, with all the changes this will bring in terms of technological and social developments, and new possibilities of communication and cultural change.(bold added by me for emphasis)

Profiting from the Web has it's connotation here in this blog entry to mean, development of societies in regards to the knowledge based and development of individual to widen their boundaries of perspective.

Open Hardware Repository

"Designing in an open environment is definitely more fun than doing it in isolation, and we firmly believe that having fun results in better hardware." It is hard to deny that enthusiasm is inspiring and that it can be one of the factors in the success of any enterprise. The statement comes from the Manifesto of the Open Hardware Repository (OHR), which is defined by its creators as a place on the web where electronics designers can collaborate on open-hardware designs, much in the philosophy of the movement for open-source software. Of course, there is more to this than the importance of enthusiasm. Feedback from peers, design reuse and better collaboration with industry are also among the important advantages to working in an open environment.Hardware joins the open movement

Just have to legally read License application in order to see that it is actually a concerted effort to such establishment of an Open Internet agenda ? Why is this important?

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OHR Manifesto

The Open Hardware Repository is a place on the web for electronics designers to collaborate on open hardware designs, much in the philosophy of the free software movement. There are numerous advantages to working in a completely open environment:

• Peer review. If you are a designer in a somewhat small team, or even alone, you can get very useful feedback from others by exposing your ideas in an open space. Chances are somebody has similar interests to yours and more experience.
• Design reuse. The OHR has its origins (and initial scope) in the community of electronics designers working in experimental physics laboratories. One of its goals is to reduce the number of different teams working independently to solve the same problems, in order to make better systems with less time and effort.
• Better collaboration with industry. The current business model for most commercial design companies is to keep the details of design secret. While this might maximize the margins of some companies it has no advantage for the customers. We believe that a business model based on companies designing in the OHR and getting paid for it is perfectly feasible, and would result in better products and the possibility for the customer to improve them and debug them more effectively.
• Last but not least, designing in an open environment is definitely more fun than doing it in isolation, and we firmly believe that having fun results in better hardware.

There are two different areas in the OHR:

• Project pages are under the responsibility of a given project leader. There are two requirements for any project to qualify for OHR support:
  • Everything needed to review and modify the design and to produce the final hardware must be published. This includes schematics and PCB layout in some human-readable open format, bill of materials, mechanical drawings, manufacturing files, etc. Submitting the electronics CAD files in case someone uses the same design software and wants to modify the design is also requested. A project leader is free to use any licensing scheme for a given design, provided it is compatible with the OHR goals stated in this document. Two good candidates for open design are the TAPR Open Hardware License and the CERN Open Hardware License.
  • The project must present an interest to the community of electronics designers for experimental physics facilities. This community being very wide and diverse, we don’t think this is a very troublesome constraint.
• OHR Support is a specific project devoted to the OHR itself. It contains useful information for users and any issue on OHR usage can be reported there.

We hope that the OHR will be a worthy contribution to a change in design paradigms and practices towards more openness and quality. See: http://www.ohwr.org/

 ***

CERN Open Hardware Licence

The CERN Open Hardware License was written for CERN designs hosted in the OHR and can also be used by any designer wishing to share design information using a license compliant with the OSHW definition criteria.

Access to the full text: CERN Open Hardware Licence.

It is important for "such distribution" to understand that the very development of internet through CERN and Sir Tim Berners-Lee as too, Cern being a birth place of internet. The origination of Internet Technologies as a development toward "advancing communication" other then corporate monopolistic control over the internet. Why,  non profit development detriment to not to consider it a  a right to all countries "access to information" with which to advance those societies?

To combat UBB and Vertical Integration. LHC development as a participation of many countries.

Cern must turn their views toward Canada and "current events" in order to understand the importance of such developments with regard to OHR Manifesto.If you can free the consumers/population in Canada then you can free the world to stopping advancing communications constraints and development toward a world population knowledge and developmental bottleneck..

Update: See Also: CERN brings hardware into the open

Make sure you check out the labels to learn some history

Community Broadband Networks

So here's the plan.

The CRTC made it's decision.....but we can change that. Municipal television networks? Do we need the integration of big Telecom or can local TV stations newly formed become part of the expression on a international stage by supplying local community news? Local newspapers,  part of the expression of those communities? Access to the internet,  not dictated by cost of usage based billing of Big Telecom that has a monopoly?

Why no development of rural/municipalities communities since wireless already exists? Faster speeds as fiber optic laid in rural/municipalities communities?

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Google Fiber for Communities: Get Involved

Thank you to all of the communities and individuals that expressed their interest in Google Fiber for Communities. The quality and scope of the responses exceeded our expectations, and we were honored by the thought and effort that went into every submission. One message came through loud and clear: people across the country are hungry for better and faster broadband access.Google Fiber for Communities: Get Involved

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Breaking the Broadband Monopoly

Communities that have invested in these networks have seen tremendous benefits. Even small communities have generated millions of dollars in cumulative savings from reduced rates – caused by competition. Major employers have cited broadband networks as a deciding factor in choosing a new site and existing businesses have prospered in a more competitive environment.

Residents who subscribe to the network see the benefits of a network that puts service first; they talk to a neighbor when something goes wrong, not an offshore call center. At the municipal fiber network in Wilson, North Carolina, they talk of the “strangle effect.” If you have problems with their network, you can find someone locally to strangle. Because public entities are directly accountable to citizens, they have a stronger interest in providing good services, upgrading infrastructure, etc., than private companies who are structured to maximize profits, not community benefits. Residents who remain with private providers still get the benefits of competition, including reduced rates and increased incumbent investment.

Some publicly owned networks have decided to greatly increase competition by adopting an “open access” approach where independent service providers can use the network on equal terms. Public ownership and open access give residents and businesses the option of choosing among many providers, forcing providers to compete on the basis of service quality and price rather than simply on a historic monopoly boundary.Published May 2010 Author: Christopher Mitchell

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Municipal Broadband: Demystifying Wireless and Fiber-Optic Options

Quote:

The United States, creator of the Internet, increasingly lags in access to it. In the absence of a national broadband strategy, many communities have invested in broadband infrastructure, especially wireless broadband, to offer broadband choices to their residents.

Newspaper headlines trumpeting the death of municipal wireless networks ignore the increasing investments by cities in Wi-Fi systems. At the same time, the wireless focus by others diverts resources and action away from building the necessary long term foundation for high speed information: fiber optic networks.

DSL and cable networks cannot offer the speeds required by a city wishing to compete in the digital economy. Business, government, and citizens all need affordable and fast access to information networks.

Today's decisions will lay the foundation of telecommunications infrastructure for decades. Fortunately, we already know the solution: wireless solves the mobility problem; fiber solves the speed and capacity problems; and public ownership offers a network built to benefit the community.Published January 2008 Author: Christopher Mitchell

We Cannot Apply Constraints to Communication?

Is the public winners in decisions that "add more cost" to what should be access to "freedoms of information?"

The Cathedral and the Bizarre by Jeff Lewis

The problem there is that the 'capitalist trench' problem is just as real in OpenSource as it is in commerical product: once a group buys into a specific solution, the cost of changing grows with time. That's true even if the software is 'free' because the maintenance costs and time to convert to another solution are not (link now dead)

This entry is in my view, one of a correlating experience about what was once "Netscape and Microsoft and the platforms"  from which one could assume to operate their computers.
 



This was the battle between Microsoft and Netscape now under the title of the "Cathedral and the Bizarre,"  by Eric Raymond, now in book form. It wasn't so sometime ago as shown above when I read of this history under a Macopinion.com link.

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Steve Wozniak talks about the open Internet and net neutrality at the FCC

I was also taught that space, and the moon, were free and open. Nobody owned them. No country owned them. I loved this concept of the purest things in the universe being unowned.Steve Wozniak

Steve Wozniak - Steve Wozniak is a computer engineer who co-founded Apple Computer, Inc. with Steve Jobs. He created the Apple I and Apple II series computers in the mid-1970s. After earning the National Medal of Technology in 1985, Wozniak left Apple to work on various business and philanthropic ventures.

To whom it may concern:

The early Internet was so accidental, it also was free and open in this sense. The Internet has become as important as anything man has ever created. But those freedoms are being chipped away. Please, I beg you, open your senses to the will of the people to keep the Internet as free as possible. Local ISP's should provide connection to the Internet but then it should be treated as though you own those wires and can choose what to do with them when and how you want to, as long as you don't destruct them. I don't want to feel that whichever content supplier had the best government connections or paid the most money determined what I can watch and for how much. This is the monopolistic approach and not representative of a truly free market in the case of today's Internet.Steve Wozniak to the FCC: Keep the Internet Free

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An Open letter Concerning a Not-So-Open Internet

LETTER START

As I turn on my computer to begin this letter, I log into Windows and receive a notification that an update is available for Java. Something I’ve seen a hundred times before and never really given much thought to. But this time something else crosses my mind; how big is the update? How much data will be downloaded to my computer? I read each of the prompts that come up on my screen, a little more closely than previously, looking for some indication of file size, but I see nothing. I go ahead with the update, but not without some concern. The issue? Something as simple as a software update on my computer may actually end up costing me money.

The new Usage Based Billing systems coming into place with the big Internet Providers in Canada will mean a lot more restriction and monitoring of the things we do every day. Products we have already paid for, services we have already subscribed to (along with their monthly or annual bills) will now be subject to overage fees, adding more cost onto what we already pay. Where we could once pay a single monthly bill for our internet, we will now be paying not only the bill, but also the extra fees for having used more data than the Internet Service Providers think we should be using.

I have a few internet connected devices in my home aside from just a computer. Most Canadians would agree that a household with a single computer used simply for checking email and doing online banking is no longer the norm in our society. When most people hear talk of “large downloads” and Internet Providers cracking down on “excessive users”, to most this brings up thoughts of people using file sharing, or peer-to-peer programs to share music and movies across the internet. But with the prevalence of so many internet connected devices found in almost every home, and with legitimate online video and music streaming services being introduced, “large downloads” is something that now applies to everyone, whether they fully realize it or not.

I have an Xbox360. I use it to watch videos, play online multiplayer games with friends, download game demos, and to purchase and download full games through Microsoft’s Xbox Live service. As my monthly bandwidth allotment from my Internet Provider disappears, I will simply stop using it. I have already paid for my Xbox, the use of the online service through my Xbox Live Gold account, the games themselves, and for my internet access. With Usage Based Billing I will be expected to pay yet again if I don’t monitor my usage closely enough.
I should not be paying more for services that I already pay for.

This does not only apply to people with Xbox 360’s, but also to anyone with a Sony Playstation or a Nintendo Wii in their home. It would be safe to assume that the majority of people in this country that have an internet connection have at least one of these gaming devices in their home. Even if it’s in your son’s or daughter’s room and you never actually use it yourself, it’s the same as any other computer connected to your home network. We paid for them, in some cases we pay extra for the fuller online experience, and now we will be expected to pay yet again, each month, due to these new bandwidth restrictions. Higher monthly bills will result in people placing more restrictions on usage, watching their bandwidth meter, making sure they’ll be able to afford their internet bill for the month.

I don’t use it myself, but I know there are a number of people that purchase music, movies and television shows through Apple’s iTunes. Having paid for your videos, perhaps in High Definition format, downloading them, and then being charged again at the end of the month due to the size of the videos themselves, is completely unfair.
I subscribe to Netflix. I have been using it on both my home computers and my Xbox. Although now with the new changes coming into effect, when I find a movie on Netflix I want to watch, I’ll be checking to see how much more, on top of the fee I have already paid to Netflix, the movie might end up costing me. Again, paying more for services that I already pay for.

I use an online backup service called Crashplan. All of my computer files are backed up daily to their secure servers, leaving me the peace of mind that if our home was broken into or anything was destroyed in a fire, all of my files and programs would be safe. Already paying an annual fee for the service, I may well have to give up this peace of mind in order to keep my internet bill at an affordable level.
As an addition to this full online backup service, I also use a service called Dropbox. This enables me to keep certain files in sync across all of my computers, as well as my Smartphone. A very handy and reliable service, but also one that uses data over my home internet connection. Again, I pay an annual fee for this service, but may end up being charged even more on top of that as a result of the new Usage Based Billing.

I use Last.fm. This is an online radio service that customizes radio stations for me based on my listening habits. I sometime have it playing for most of the day as I do things around the house, but this will have to stop, as I can’t risk the constant data stream pushing my internet bill up and up.

I have friends that use VoIP services; Voice over IP (internet telephone, as opposed to the normal telephones most are familiar with). These services, such as Vonage and Skype, eliminate the need for an extra telephone bill in their homes, and provide long distance savings. But with the overage fees charged by the Internet Providers, they will no longer be the money saving services they were meant to be.

In addition to the PC’s, laptops, and the Xbox I have in my house, I also have a Smartphone. I recently made the switch to an Android based phone, but this will also apply to anyone who has an iPhone, Blackberry, or any other internet enabled phone that can connect to a Wi-Fi network. When at home I keep my phone connected to my home Wi-Fi. Anyone who has a Smartphone knows that these devices transmit a fair amount of data; keeping email, calendar and contacts in sync, various Apps that update in the background at set intervals, downloading new Apps, and, as with most Smartphone’s today, the majority are more than capable of streaming video from YouTube and a number of other online services. With the new Usage Based Billing, my phone is one more device connected to my network when at home, using up the limited bandwidth, and eventually costing me even more by the end of the month.

There are also certain things that are harder to control in our online world when it comes to data consumption; Windows Update is a perfect example. These are the fixes issued by Microsoft for their Windows Operating System that, in most people’s cases, download and install automatically in the background. The only User intervention required is after the updates are finished installing, you get that familiar prompt that your system needs to be restarted. And so the questions: how much data was downloaded during this process? If you were already very close to your monthly bandwidth allowance, did this push you over? Did these updates actually end up costing you more money? The last time I installed my copy of Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook), I remember a number of updates being required through Windows Update, and they were not small in size. Having already purchased the software, I don’t believe I should be charged again for installing the necessary upgrades.

As careful as you might be in regards to the data being transferred in your household, making sure the next bill to come in is within the affordable range, things like background updates for your Operating System, as well as any Anti-Virus and Spyware programs you may be using (on each of the PC’s in your home, mind you), and other updates for any of the software installed on your computer, will also be added to your total data consumption. I’ll admit, these software updates, each on their own, are usually not very large, and so it would be easy to dismiss them. But when added together with the web surfing, online banking and shopping, emailing, Youtubing, Facebooking, video/audio streaming, online gaming (on PC or console), and all the other random data transfer that we have never really had to think too much about in the past, this adds up. And the higher the data consumption climbs, the higher the bill will be at the end of the month.

I certainly don’t like the idea, nor do I think it’s fair, that at the end of any given month, I might find myself very close to the bandwidth allotment given to me, and having to decide if uploading that new video to Facebook is worth an extra dollar or two on my internet bill, or having to weigh the cost of emailing the photos I took at Christmas to my family. Why should my Internet Provider get to cash in on things that are supposed to be free? I already pay for my internet access, as I always have, but now that will not be enough. In order to keep my bill at a reasonable level I will be expected to monitor the usage of every internet connected device in my home (including friends that might stop by with their laptop, netbook or Smartphone), and in some cases will be forced to eliminate certain things and cancel certain services altogether.
It is not too late to change this. As with this letter, there are ways of making sure people are informed about this issue and how, in the end, it will affect their daily lives. The companies and service providers, like the ones I mentioned above, should also be made aware, that if things continue down this road they will in fact be losing customers, as a lot of us will simply not be able to afford their services due to the extra fees being charged by our Internet Providers.

Our society is evolving. Online services and connected devices have become an integral part of our daily lives, for both work and pleasure. The cost of these devices and services is something we weigh at the time of purchase, but now there will be an additional factor to consider; how much more will I have to pay each month to my Internet Provider in order to use them?
If you're looking for a way to make this issue known, and to show your support, sign the Stop The Meter petition and encourage your contacts/customers to do the same.

Sign here:
http://StopTheMeter.ca

If you are a part of an organization please endorse and otherwise support the Stop The Media campaign. You can reach OpenMedia.ca, the organization running the campaign, by emailing: contact@openmedia.ca

D. Scott

This letter composed with Google Documents. Online. Using bandwidth.