Abstract
The history of communication technologies is populated with conflicts between centralization and decentralization. While many of these technologies started or have existed at some point of their development as a decentralized structure, often replacing older technological paradigms, nearly all progressively evolved into concentrated clusters of power as a result of industrialization and of the reaffirmation of state sovereignty, following a Schumpeterian process of “creative-destruction” (Wu 2010). However, when the needs of citizens turn out to be systematically overlooked in existing power dynamics, decentralized initiatives may emerge as an attempt to disrupt the dominant hegemony and allow for the democratic re-appropriation of technology—a process that the philosopher Andrew Feenberg calls “subversive rationalization” (Feenberg 1995).
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Facility-based competition, or infrastructure-based competition, refers to the regulatory focus on creating competition between telecom firms that each have their own distinct network infrastructure for delivering end-user services, such as Internet access provision.
- 2.
For the purpose of this paper, we focused on a handful of groups, and in particular FreiFunk (Germany), Wlan Slovenija (Slovenia), Guifi.net (Spain) and Tetaneutral.net in Toulouse (France)—the latter is also a member of the FFDN, a federation of French grassroots networks initially spearheaded by the landline community network FDN. Other European WCN include Ninux (Italy), Funfeuer (Austria), the Athens Wireless Metropolitan Network (Greece), Djurslands.net (Denmark) and Czfree.net (Czech Republic).
- 3.
In Berlin, for instance, Freifunk’s popularity actually brought incumbent telecom operators to update their service agreements enabling subscribers to share their DSL connection to contribute bandwidth to the network.
- 4.
An Internet gateway is all that is required to connect a particular network to an existing Internet connection. The gateway router will share bandwidth with other devices on the network from that connection. Multiple gateways can be deployed on the same network to provide additional bandwidth, as does for instance Tetaneutral.net.
- 5.
First, exclusive licensing have led to anti-competitive behaviors by spectrum owners, or favored certain technologies over potentially more promising ones. For example, several countries grant exclusive licenses to established commercial players providing Internet access through WiMAX or satellite, and even subsidize them. Second, such schemes have proved to encourage underutilization of the resource in the name of avoiding congestion, thus creating artificial scarcity of frequency bands. Many spectrum owners, be they the military or commercial operators (again, satellite or WiMAX come to mind) own important portions of spectrum but do not actually make full use of it, thus crowding out other technologies and potential uses of social value. TV and radio broadcasters also leave significant gaps between their respective channels (these so-called “white spaces”) acting as buffers to avoid interference—thereby leaving many frequencies unused in the valuable UHF bands. Combined together, these phenomena bring underutilization to stunning levels: a recent study conducted for the EU Commission finds that, in Paris, the average spectrum use is as low as 7.7 % of the 400 MHz–3 GHz bands, while the average spectrum utilization rate in Europe is under 10 %.
- 6.
WCN theoretically could be allowed to use the other portion of spectrum by NRAs. Yet, they also refrain from doing so. Except for the 2.4 and 5 GHz license-exempt bands were high demand has driven prices down, radio networking remains a niche market for manufacturers of radio transmitters, and the gear necessary to deploy wireless networks in other bands is costly. Community networks generally cannot afford the price.
- 7.
For the past years, through several regulatory moves, the FCC has been opening UHF “white spaces” to unlicensed uses. It has also started expanding the so-called “Unlicensed National Information Infrastructure” by adding 195 MHz of spectrum in the 5 GHz band and increase the permissible power for radio transmitters in these bands. See Farivar (2014).
- 8.
La Quadrature du Net (2011).
- 9.
For giving unlicensed access to another 100 MHz of spectrum bands, the report suggested that half of these should be in the 1 GHz bands and the other one at 1.4 GHz. To avoid underutilization, the report also calls on policy-makers to suspend exclusive use of specific channels whenever the use of that spectrum is consistently below a level justifying any form of exclusivity. In France, where WiMAX roll-out has been so slow that the NRA eventually notified the corresponding licensees that they were in breach of their obligations, such a measure could lead to many more channels being opened up for shared or even unlicensed use, for instance to community networks.
- 10.
On very-fast broadband roll-out, our interviewees also pointed to the need to reorient both public and private investments in fiber-optic last-mile networks where they are most needed, that is in rural communities where decent broadband is crucially lacking, rather than in already well-connected urban areas where there is usually less demand for higher speeds. They also called on regulators to better coordinate so that any public work being carried to roll-out fiber-optic cables that can then be used to expand and improve Internet access.
References
Article 19. (2005). The legitimacy of license requirements for the use of wireless communications devices. Retrieved April 16, 2014, from http://www.wsis-community.org/pg/file/read/1674/the-legitimacy-of-licence-requirements-for-the-use-of-wireless-communications-devices
Bauwens, M. (2005). P2P and human evolution: Peer to peer as the premise of a new mode of civilization. Ensaio, rascunho, 1.
Benkler, Y. (2006). The wealth of networks. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
European Commission. (2012). Communication on promoting the shared use of radio spectrum resources in the internal market. Brussels.
European Commission. (2013). e-Communications Household Survey (Special Eurobarometer No. 396). Brussels: EU Commission. Retrieved from http://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/news/special-eurobarometer-396-e-communications-household-survey
European Commission. (2014a). Broadband access in the EU: Situation at 1 July 2013. Retrieved from http://ec.europa.eu//digital-agenda/en/news/broadband-access-eu-situation-1-july-2013
Farivar, C. (2014, March 31). More Wi-Fi is better: FCC expands use of 5GHz spectrum. Ars Technica. Retrieved May 11, 2014, from http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/03/more-wi-fi-is-better-fcc-expands-use-of-5-GHz-spectrum/
Feenberg, A. (1995). Subversive rationalization: Technology, power and democracy. In A. Hannay & A. Feenberg (Eds.), Technology and the politics of knowledge (pp. 3–22). Indiana University Press.
La Quadrature du Net. (2011, May 11). EU Parliament Adopts Open Wireless Communications Policy. LaQuadrature.net. Retrieved May 12, 2014, from http://www.laquadrature.net/en/eu-parliament-adopts-open-wireless-communications-policy
Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the commons: The evolution of institutions for collective action. Cambridge: Cambridge university press.
SamKnows. (2013). SamKnows study on Internet speeds. Retrieved from https://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/news/quality-broadband-services-eu-samknows-study-internet-speeds
Shaffer, G. (2013). Lessons learned from grassroots wireless networks in Europe. In A. Abdelaal (Ed.), Social and economic effects of community wireless networks and infrastructures (pp. 236–254). IGI Global.
Stoyanova, M. (2008). Competition problems in liberalized telecommunications: Regulatory solutions to promote effective competition. The Netherlands: Kluwer Law International.
Thatcher, M. (2014). European Commission merger control: Combining competition and the creation of larger European firms. European Journal of Political Research, 53(3), 443–464.
Wu, T. (2010). The master switch: The rise and fall of information empires. New York: Knopf.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
De Filippi, P., Tréguer, F. (2016). Wireless Community Networks: Towards a Public Policy for the Network Commons?. In: Belli, L., De Filippi, P. (eds) Net Neutrality Compendium. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26425-7_19
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26425-7_19
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-26424-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-26425-7
eBook Packages: Law and CriminologyLaw and Criminology (R0)