Return of CB Radio William Lehr Andy Lippman

Return of CB Radio William Lehr Andy Lippman wlehr@mit. edu lip@media. mit. edu Communications Futures Program Massachusetts Institute of Technology CFP Sponsor Meeting Huawei Biltmore Hotel, Santa Clara CA October 24 -25, 2011 © Lehr & Lippman, 2011

Return of CB (or towards the Proximal Internet) Motivation: why/what proximal Internet Requirements Some multidisciplinary research questions © Lehr & Lippman, 2011 2

Vision of a wireless future Pervasive computing Internet of Things Smart everything Competition Innovation Growth : virtuous cycle ! Wireless certainly, but does it require the Internet, or a Mobile Service Provider? - A: No. Does not require, but complements To require is bad for competition, openness, robustness © Lehr & Lippman, 2011 3

Source: Xinzhou Wu, Flashin. Q presentation, May 2010 © Lehr & Lippman, 2011 4 QUALCOMM Proprietary and Confidential

Qualcomm “Flashlin. Q” Proximal Internet Source: Xinzhou Wu, Flashin. Q presentation, May 2010 “Media Swap” In-building Automation Control Mobile Social Network “Profile Matching” “Multi-player” Neighborhood Gaming “Proximate Contextaware Gaming” “Vouch” – building 3 rdparty Trust Nets © Lehr & Lippman, 2011 “Flash. Pay” – e. Cash between e. Wallets QUALCOMM Proprietary and Confidential 5

Real and Virtual Worlds Real Zigbee Blue. Tooth Wi. Fi Flashlin. Q Internet 3 G/4 G Fixed broadband ------------ Radio Virtual Near --------- Range --------- Far -- tech allows us to virtualize the real world -- where the boundary is, is a design decision! © Lehr & Lippman, 2011 6

Some questions this vision raises Q: To merge the real/virtual worlds – do we need a new radio? Is something like Flashlin. Q the kind of radio we need? - A: Something like this is worth experimenting with at scale, but this is only one possible path (and maybe far from best) Q: How closely (and where/how in architecture) should we merge real/virtual worlds? -A: Lots of policy, user acceptance, business model issues here Q: Assuming we need a new radio and Flashlin. Q is a good place to start, what needs to happen to get the ball rolling? - A: What we hope to investigate… © Lehr & Lippman, 2011 7

Return of CB: Proximal Radio Requirements Features: “as easy to use, as available, as cheap as CB Radio” -- Anyone can buy and use to communicate (point-to-point(s), link-layer) without requiring a subscription (“unlicensed”). -- Works without an infrastructure network. But, functionality/flexibility limited -- Not data/m 2 m friendly. -- Not flexible architecture for radio (business models or policy) © Lehr & Lippman, 2011 8

Technical Requirements for Proximal Internet “Moving through sea of connectivity and resources, sensing what is available and communicating peer-to-peer with resources” Discovery: what devices are proximal? “Aura-Sense” - Shared medium (air=sound, smell, light=vision) RF - Always on automatic, continuous, passive, energy efficient - Scalable 1000 s of devices ( Spectral efficiency) Communicate: point-to-point (any-to-any) links, proximally - Range (~1 km but not ~5 km) “Local” ( Mobility) - Capacity (kbps-10 Mbps but not 100 Mbps+) - Secure communication Private © Lehr & Lippman, 2011 9

Radio flexibility & Spectrum Management Q: Does radio need to live in licensed spectrum (as FLQ)? - aka, protected/protocol-constrained (non-technology neutral) - But, not assigned to operator as exclusive-licensed (which not open) - how to have flexibility of unlicensed (business model) with interference protection/availability of licensed (technical/protocol)? Q: If we need a “Proximal Radio” Band, how to get there? - need for international harmonization (scale economics) v. stagnation - candidate bands? Below 3 GHz – TV bands? ? FRS/CB? ? - mobilizing policy debate: public safety? Killer app? Niche focus? Q: Relationship to Dynamic Spectrum Access (DSA) vision? - aka, Cognitive/software defined/”waveform” agile radios - with shared spectrum, decoupling of RF/radio/service - Is Proximal Radio a new “narrow waist” for Internet? © Lehr & Lippman, 2011 10

End-user control, silo apps, and platform design Proximal radio : allow end-user to learn about resources in environment and selectively communicate with them Q: Who controls what is sensed? - aka, is this sensing or surveillance? - is giving user choice really a choice? Q: Do different domains require different defaults? - e. g. , health info v. “just-in-time” coupons - if yes, who manages the virtualization? What’s the platform? - what is the “killer app” (domain) to get the ball rolling? - how do we get these radios into the hands of users? © Lehr & Lippman, 2011 11

Public safety v. Retail (coupons) v. Health (monitoring) Value proposition - who pays? : public good v. ad support v. bundled niche app - when/how used? : Rare v. daily; necessity of ubiquity? - $ benefit/cost margin Value-chain structure - who adopts? consumer v. business; B 2 C v. B 2 B - regulatory/institutional? User experience - push/pull/ambient, automated v. manual mode - experience, not search good (? ) : learning - social/network, not individual (? ): influencers - etc. © Lehr & Lippman, 2011 12

Summing up… Proximal Internet is key to value chain growth opportunities A new radio is needed, a new kind of CB … Qualcomm’s FLQ puts a worthy stake in the ground BUT lots of research questions … -- What’s the right spectrum management model? -- Implications of new radio platform for Internet arch? -- How will pervasive computing change our lives? © Lehr & Lippman, 2011 13

Further reading Chapin, J. and W. Lehr, 2011. Mobile Broadband Growth, Spectrum Scarcity, and Sustainable Competition, 39 th Research Conference on Communications, Information and Internet Policy (www. tprcweb. com), Alexandria, VA, September 2011. (pdf) (slides) Corson, M. S. , R. Laroia, L. Junyi, V. Park, T. Richardson, and G. Tsirtsis, 2010. Toward proximity-aware internetworking, Wireless Communications, IEEE 17, 26 -33. Lippman, A. 2011. Proximal Radio, MIT Media Lab. Weiser, M. , 1991. The computer for the 21 st century, Scientific American 265, 94 -104. Wu, X. , 2010, Flash. Lin. Q: A clean slate design for ad hoc networks, presentation slides, (slides) © Lehr & Lippman, 2011 14