User:Lieven Van Speybroeck/Reading/Thematic Project/Medosh Not Just Another Wireless Utopia

notes on Armin Medosh's Not Just Another Wireless Utopia

Base

• Compare 2 'waves' (referred to as "bubbles") of wireless revolutions (and utopian thinking originating from them) in history:
  • - look for patterns: how new technologies shape society and vice versa
  • - move on from speculative media theory to an analysis and description through concrete media (because speculative media theory tends to ignore the technical basis of physical network structures/functions, it's sensitive to becoming irrelevant due to no understanding of the matter it relates to)

    -> look at network topologies as a layered protocol stack: both physical and social organisation

FIRST WAVE ("bubble"): 1910 - Radio waves

• engineering (free wireless electricity/energy)
• artistic (psychotropic properties to influence the mind)
• political (liberal (finances), social democratic (communication freedom), socialist (democracy))

  => naive visions: broadcasting 'wars' by using (and thereby canceling out) frequencies of rival stations.

  => state regulation of radio spectrum

  => complete totalitarian medium during WWII: propaganda

  => postwar (until liberalization/deregulation ~ free market): state regulates the medium of electromagnetic waves in the public interest: allocation to state organs and privileged license holders

  -> falls apart in the 70's (neo-liberalisation): partial privatization of airwaves to recover the economy (oil crash) -> attacked by the left free media movements

  -> 90's: internet becomes public -> mecca for non-commercial/activist/artistic purposes AND free market ideology

  -> resurgence of this utopianism with the coming of mobile phones/networks

SECOND WAVE: late 90's - 2001: shift GSM through GPRS to 3G networks

• -> mobile networking paradigm: proprietary control of a centralized network topology (vs internet ideology: egalitarian, participatory)

  <-> internet (hacker type of) 'freedom': power to the users

  => respectively expanding private corporate model vs declining state ownership model

Network (communication) models:

• elitist one-to-many (Proprietary) <-> open many-to-many (Free Networks) ( ~ network topologies: physical & social organisation)
• Free Networks: DIY, "hacker-ethics", self-sustaining network, user-driven. -> 802.11(open) wifi standards (optimized compatibility)!

  -> ad-hoc networking: p2p as the material layer for network communication (Consume): 'meshed', decentralized network of nodes (large free data cloud)

  -> users as active contributors to the network (bandwidth- and content-wise)

  -> envisioned as a worldwide free network that, ultimately, makes telecom providers superfluous

• Monopoly Telco Networks: complete opposite

  -> star network topology

  -> ultimate control

  -> users as consumers

• Spectrum (de)regulation:

  -> license exempt: no (total) regulation through government but software controlled micro-regulation on local scale (~ avoid 'frequency wars' due to 'non-regulation' (1920's))

• Mobile business:
  • creation/consumption of lifestyle gadgets (capitalist society).
  • social control: panopticon (~ future mappings: society in a constant state of self-sustaining surveillance)
  • information sphere gets geographical (permanent localization) <-> internet: non-space

    -> possibilities for 'direct personal' marketing/surveillance/...

Interaction between communication technologies and social systems

• how are communication technologies embedded into society and how is society embedded into communication technologies?
  • Proprietary approach: shaping the user more and more into a controllable consumer
  • Open approach: users as active contributors to new technologies in a non-hierarchal model

    => constrain or protect freedom of speech or other communication rights

• network commons: comprise the physical network, the protocols that run it and the content that it carries.

  -> to make this work, there's a need for social organization: a growing heterogenous community of contributors that breaks the current state of isolation (a small community of 'nerds' trying to put the free network movement into higher gear)

some thoughts

• […] do a bit more of installation and maintenance work than the average Windows or Apple user […] to configure their machines the way they want."

  => isn't this a bit euphemistic? Really customizing a linux OS the way you want (that is, going beyond the ubuntu GUI) involves a lot more than just doing a bit more of installation and maintenance work. It's about knowing what you're doing, knowing the technology, and most importantly: having a significant interest in this matter. Of course, the evolution of certain platforms towards pure lifestyle/entertainment systems that mimic common acts on a screen (reading a book, listening to music, making slideshows,…) is the other extreme. But there's a huge grey zone in between those 2.

• "Shaping future technologies becomes a job where everybody can and SHOULD be involved"

  => won't his 'superdemocratic' system eventually result in the complete opposite of ultimate accessibility/versatility/flexibility, being "total chaos"?

  => 'should' implies forcing people into contribution here: is everyone suited to do so? Is everyone even interested?

• "The mobile network urgently needs to get open sourced"
  • http://www.openmoko.com/freerunner.html
  • http://www.opencellphone.org/index.php?title=Main_Page

  => starting points? Idealistic? Utopian? Corporate structures in an open-source wrapping paper?

• […] That there is an intrinsic connection between free networks, free software and free hardware."

  => can hardware ever be open source?

  -> as stated in the text, the success of 802.11 development has been powered by the mass-production (and pricedropping) of wireless technologies by companies like Apple, Intel, … would certain development (and efficiency/speed in development) in an open-source community?

• The free network movement has been carried forward by nerd enthusiasm

  => because it's elitist?