IP: BW Online | April 1, 2002 | Wi-Fi's "Cauldron of Innovation"

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

This is part of a good special report available at http://
www.businessweek.com/tc_special/wireless.htm


------ Forwarded Message
From: Doug Michels <doug () tarantella com>
Organization: Tarantella, Inc.
Reply-To: doug () tarantella com
Date: Mon, 01 Apr 2002 15:53:04 -0800
To: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
Subject: BW Online | April 1, 2002 | Wi-Fi's "Cauldron of Innovation"

    Wi-Fi's "Cauldron of Innovation"
</technology/content/apr2002/tc2002041_3117.htm>

                          Wi-Fi is about to go mainstream, says David
Farber, professor of telecommunications at the University of Pennsylvania
and one of the industry's top networking experts. That's because this
technology for broadband wireless networking (which uses the popular 802.11
standard) has reached a point where it's cheap and easy enough to deploy
that it will soon be ubiquitous.

Farber should know. In his 49 years in computer science, he has seen many
technological breakthroughs follow the same path. An Internet pioneer, he
designed the first electronic switching system during 11 years at Bell
Laboratories early in his career, and today he does research on high-speed
networking. 

He has also become an advocate for keeping technology open to competition
and unrestrained by regulation. He spent a year as the chief technologist at
the Federal Communications Commission and testified as an expert witness for
the government during the Microsoft antitrust trial. He is perhaps best
known in tech circles for maintaining an e-mail distribution list of
articles and ideas that he calls "interesting people." It reaches as many as
20,000 people daily.

These days, Wi-Fi is frequently fodder for the list. Farber is a great fan
of Wi-Fi, which he feels stands apart from other wireless technologies
because it operates on unlicensed spectrum, which means that regulators and
large telecommunications companies don't control it. That freedom has
allowed for what he calls a "caldron of innovation" on the part of
developers, which will lead to many more uses for Wi-Fi technology in homes
and businesses. 

With all this potential comes risk, however. Farber fully expects competing
interests to try to inhibit the grass-roots innovation. While he says the
warring between the big companies will be "fun to watch," he worries that
regulators could be misled into thinking they need to step in and stop
innovation. Farber shared his thoughts with BusinessWeek Online Associate
Editor Amey Stone <mailto:amey_stone () businessweek com>  in interviews that
took place over several days via telephone and e-mail -- over a wireless
network, of course. Following are edited excerpts of their discussion:

Q: How important is Wi-Fi as a technology?
A: It's very significant. This is something we talked about a long, long
time ago -- the idea of being always connected to computers. You can get off
an airplane and turn on your computer, and suddenly you're communicating --
all without a huge amount of regulatory overhead. That's creating a whole
new generation of people who are using the technology and coming up with
creative applications for it. So far, it's much more of a community thing,
although businesses are starting to develop that will offer access and come
up with new applications for the technology.

Q: How is Wi-Fi different from all the other wireless technologies that have
been developed?
A: The biggest change is that it allows for a lot more creativity. For
years, the use of wireless has been very controlled. You had companies that
bought spectrum space, you had cell-phone companies that sold handsets, but
there was very little opportunity to get the innovation that comes from
getting a large number of people to work at finding different ways to use
wireless technology.

Wi-Fi gives you that. You can create a network, design applications, and
build a business without having to hire Washington lawyers to do it. For
example, I'm currently designing a temperature-control system for my house
using Wi-Fi. And I don't need to get a license to do it.

Q: Is Wi-Fi proliferating faster or slower than you expect?
A: It's at about the speed I expected. In the early days, it cost $300 to
$500 for a Wi-Fi card. You had to be a hero to get the software working, and
it was no fun to try and get the operating system to behave correctly. But
over the last six months, it has developed so you can just pick it up and
plug it in. As we say in the computer-science department, even arts and
sciences students can use it. A year ago, you didn't dare offer it to them.

Now, new machines have Wi-Fi built in. Handhelds have it. Next year it will
be in printers. Pretty soon no one will even care that it is there --
they'll just assume it's there. This is an expected path with new
technology. It happens time and time again.

Q: Does Wi-Fi pose a risk to the incumbent wireless players who are
investing in next-generation (3G) technology?
A: Carriers are going to have to face the fact that, at least in congested
places, there are other ways of offering high-speed connections for data
transfer than 3G. With Wi-Fi you can get higher speeds than you can get from
3G, although there are places where 3G works and Wi-Fi won't. Initially,
Wi-Fi will temper the business case for 3G, but 3G does have applications.

For example, I don't believe anyone is going to put in a nationwide Wi-Fi
network. There are better ways to do that. Wi-Fi works very well in a
relatively dense population, but it's never going to cover a lonely back
road. Ultimately, Wi-Fi may create more demand for 3G services since it will
wet people's whistle. People will see that this stuff does work, and they
will want more. 

Q: Is there a risk that Wi-Fi could become more expensive?
A: I don't think it's ever going to be expensive unless someone changes the
rules. You don't need anybody to make it work. There will be people who will
come in and offer services, and if they are affordable and well-thought out,
people will tend to use them. In this sense it's like the early days of the
Internet. 

Q: Could concerns about security hamper its spread?
A: Those are growing pains. In almost every maturing technology, there are
growing pains. Today, [such] problems get solved pretty fast.

Q: Do you see any threats to your vision of Wi-Fi creating a "cauldron of
innovation," as you put it?
A: We just need to make sure that people whose business would be helped by
Wi-Fi not succeeding aren't allowed to change the rules. There are things
you could do to turn off all this creativity. History suggests that there
are probably already lobbyists working on killing the golden goose. But my
reading right now is that those efforts probably will not succeed. Wi-Fi is
a stampede that will be hard to stop.

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