I am a member of the ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery. The ACM tackles all manner of computing topics, including wireless network. Below is an excerpt from an interview of one of the leading researchers in wireless networking.
Featured ACM Member: Craig Partridge
Craig Partridge is a Chief Scientist, Networking Research, for Raytheon BBN Technologies. At BBN, he oversees a group of approximately 70 researchers who work on projects mostly funded by the US Department of Defense. Partridge’s areas of interest include network systems, the design of communications protocols, and improving the utilization of the radio spectrum for data communications.
[[stuff deleted]]
Wireless devices presently use the radio spectrum to connect with communications networks. Many predict that in the near future the radio spectrum will not be able to handle the number of devices seeking to connect to the Internet. You have said that the existing radio spectrum can be improved to meet future capacity requirements. How can the spectrum be improved, and why do you believe this is the most feasible approach?
The key observation is that much of the spectrum is not being used most of the time. So in addition to pushing data communications to more effectively use the small amount of the radio spectrum allocated to it, we need to find a way to share underutilized parts of the spectrum with the incumbent applications that are not fully using their part of the spectrum. We have most of the technology to do the sharing. The next steps are choosing which sharing technologies to use and working through the spectrum policy changes required.
If amateurs really want to prove their “ability to contribute to the advancement of the radio art” [Part 97.1(b)] we need to be working on stuff like this. Do you know of anyone in amateur radio that’s doing this? If not, what can we do to encourage people to work on it?