Are you really living in a free mobile telecommunications world?

-- By DiegodelaPuente - 29 Sep 2011

1. Facts and thoughts

According to the International Telecommunication Union by the end of 2010, there were approximately 5.3 billion mobile subscribers.

This number reveals two clear and correlated facts:

(i) The majority of the globe habitants depend excessively on mobile services; and

(ii) Owners of mobile companies have an immense power on the daily life of millions and consequently, mobile subscribers have to submit to the will and rules imposed by Carlos Slim or other mobile networks owners.

Could technology help free ourselves from mobile companies? This is an adventurous question, because for the most part since Bell and Edison times persons have become dependent on telecommunications companies to render fixed and afterwards mobile services.

I will demonstrate that we have technological alternatives to change the mobile telecommunications industry and break our actual conception of the mobile environment. Unfortunately, because there are diverse economical and political interests related with this industry, mobile companies and the U.S government have opposed to this change through the years, as you will discover herein.

2. Review your telecommunications knowledge and open your mind

You might think that the process of a mobile phone call is the simple sequence of speaking to a phone, afterwards the voice is send to the closest antenna, then to the next antenna or pipe through dedicated circuits for each call and so on until finally, it addressed its destination. Do you need a mobile company to do that for you?

Another way to process a mobile phone call is by using Voice over IP (VoIP? ), also called Internet Telephony. In this scenario voice is transformed into data packets that travel through the Internet to its destination where it will transform into voice again. Does this sound similar to what Skype does?

Now that you understand that almost everything in telecommunications is data transportation and fortunately, nowadays almost everyone is used to perform interactive conversations from a computer through Internet; can you imagine having the possibility to be connected to a giant Wi-Fi network and to use a phone everywhere by just paying a minimum fee?

It is true; I can grant that Skype or similar can be use in mobile devices, but in this case you are still under the mobile companies’ control and consequently subjected to the data services payments?

3. My proposal

Foster the usage of Wi-Fi enabled VoIP? phones (Wi-Fi phones) under super Wi-Fi environments. My intention is to gather technological improvements for a bigger purpose. Mobile companies have underestimated this idea through the years, because they considered that it would represent a serious threat for their revenues.

3.1 Super Wi-Fi networks

This is the concept of turning entire cities into wireless access zones and could be achieved by means of wireless mesh networks (WMN). A mesh in this concept is a series of radio transmitters that are able to communicate with at least two others, creating a cloud of radio signals through the city.

Mainly and among the most discussed projects during the past years for the construction of wireless mesh networks are (i) municipal wireless networks and (ii) the Freedom Box.

Many local governments from around the world have done various initiatives to build citywide Wi-Fi network and fortunately in almost every continent there has been a successfully deployment. Further and recently considering its importance, the European Commission had submitted to the European Parliament a proposal to spend almost 9.2 billion euros from 2014 to 2020 on pan-European projects to give citizens access to high-speed broadband networks.

In respect with the financial matters, the business model of local governments may vary between projects, but generally the service is rendered based on a fixed minimum payment that is adequately and proportionally divided according to each citizen’s income and that could be paid monthly or jointly with the annual tax payment.

In contrast from the positive previous statements, the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission of U.S. have opposed this scheme due to their concern for the possibility to generate (i) unfair competition among private and public sectors in the wireless industry; and (ii) harmful interferences to local TV stations.

3.2 Wi-Fi Phones

Wi-Fi phones likewise as computers use VoIP? technology to make calls over an Internet Protocol network, instead of the ordinary Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), but with the advantage that they are a lot more portable.

4. Advantages and disadvantages

Herein I am going to enumerate the most important advantages and disadvantages from our proposal.

4.1 Advantages

- Free local and long distance calls.

- Free high-speed Internet access to the general population.

- The city will become more attractive to businesses and tourists.

4.2 Disadvantages

- Poor quality or lost of signal because of the immense amount of traffic in the bandwidth shared. Solution: with the adequate hardware and software, a hotspot can separate and prioritize the voice traffic, treating it as a separate signal and providing better voice quality.

- Climate conditions can adversely affect the signal strength sensitivity.

- VoIP? usage limits the possibility to determine the precise location of a person who calls 911.

5. Conclusion

The time that is going to be needed to develop this alternative depends on you. You can try to cooperate to foster its development or continue living submitted to the will of the owners of mobile companies.

Information sources

- http://transition.fcc.gov/voip/

- http://communication.howstuffworks.com/ip-telephony9.htm

- http://www.truphone.com/en-US/

- http://www.pcworld.com/article/129114/new_voip_service_for_cell_phones.html

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Techno-utopianism

- http://www.techdirt.com/search.php?tid=Predictions

- http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070215/002923.shtml

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_VoIP

- http://www.pcworld.com/article/129114/new_voip_service_for_cell_phones.html

- http://www.fring.com/what-is-fring

- http://www.laptopmag.com/advice/how-to/Turn-Your-Cell-into-a-VoIP-Phone.aspx

- http://drdobbs.com/mobility/202600424

- http://www.portfolio.com/views/columns/dual-perspectives/2009/04/20/The-End-of-the-Cell/

- http://technostreak.com/web/mobile-voip-technology-and-its-future-affects-on-cell-phones/

- http://www.itproportal.com/2008/05/19/3-skypephone-mobile-phone-review-future-mobile-voip/

- http://www.technologybloggers.org/voip/the-future-of-telecommunication-belongs-to-mobile-voip/

- http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Present-and-Future-of-WiFi-VOIP-Phone-Technology&id=2197854

- http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/wifi-phone3.htm

- http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/wifi-phone2.htm

- http://www.broadvoice.com/wifi_voip_phone.html

- http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9962474-7.html

- http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/statistics/

- http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/material/FactsFigures2010.pdf

- http://www.jthtl.org/content/articles/V9I1/JTHTLv9i1_Lemley.PDF

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi

- http://gigaom.com/2004/07/04/review-zyxel-voip-wifi-phone/

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yft47G0328w

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hUtbUkBGpE&feature=related

- http://www.amazon.com/Locktec-WP04-WiFi-Wireless-Phone/dp/B003ZW920O

- http://computer.howstuffworks.com/municipal-wifi.htm

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Municipal_wireless_network

- http://www.wirelessphiladelphia.org/

- http://news.cnet.com/The-citywide-Wi-Fi-reality-check/2100-7351_3-5722150.html

- http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2006/10/muniwireless.shtm

- http://www.ftc.gov/os/2006/10/V060021municipalprovwirelessinternet.pdf

- http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/10/super-wif/#ixzz12OMKNRty

- http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/136391/

- http://legal.tmcnet.com/topics/legal/articles/220453-fcc-rules-limit-use-super-wi-fi-populated.htm

- http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/38635/?nlid=nldly&nld=2011-09-20

- http://www.fcc.gov/blog/fcc-announces-public-testing-first-television-white-spaces-database

- http://www.muniwireless.com/2011/10/19/european-commission-seeks-9-billion-for-broadband

- http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2007/09/wheres_my_free_wifi.html

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