Of all the many electronic devices in our world, the one that I think has brought and will continue to bring the greatest transformation is the humble - and not so simple - cell phone.
This week Verizon went to court to try to stop the FCC's rules for the upcoming spectrum auction. Hint: there's a lot at stake here.
Alert readers may remember that the FCC agreed to a limited amount of openness, enabling many kinds of services and devices to run on the new networks. This is a huge shift from the current structure in which the same vendor controls the network, the devices, and the services. Google has been among the loudest of the proponents for rule enabling openness.
Verizon wrote that the rules were "arbitrary, capricious, unsupported by substantial evidence and otherwise contrary to law."
In a public blog statement, Google responded that "The FCC's auction rules are designed to allow U.S. consumers--for the first time--to use their handsets with any network they desire, and download and use the lawful software applications of their choice. It's regrettable that Verizon has decided to use the court system to try to prevent consumers from having any choice of innovative services."
There's also no surprise that Apple's iPhone was the most anticipated launch of the season - and that its subsequent price drop and attendant PR fiasco has drawn such interest. Apple may not invent new products from whole cloth - but the leaps that Apple has historically made takes a product to a total re-envisioning of how that it is used, and how it can be a device 'for the rest of us."
Did I mention there's a lot at stake here? And that's because the device we all seem to carry around with us - and some of us even carry more than one! - is about a lot more than making a phone call. It is a symbol of the vast shift in our world.
Our species has always been on the move. We expanded our geographic reach. We wondered what was on the other side of the mountain - and created tools that let us find out and take us there. Highways moved us faster. Rockets took us higher. Submersibles took us deeper. We just can't seem to sit still.
But until cell phones became a mass-market device, our identities were still anchored to a physical location. We were tethered to a geographic address for essential communication. The rise of cell phone snapped that link.
And with it, it made us realize everything we do is mobile. Everything.
Our music is mobile. Our games are mobile. Our mail and email is mobile. The way we record images for posterity - mobile, too. It is not about walking and talking. It is about the way we have firmly cut the cord between location and daily function.
Fewer and fewer people have landlines. I don't have one. Why should I when people are calling me, not my house? If they want to reach me, they can because they are calling a device attached to my location, not to the place I have boxes stored!
That little handheld device * is * the killer app. Mobility - in all that we do - is the great shift that is already happening.
But there's a catch: mobility requires networks to connect us to each other and to our applications and data.
Those who control the networks - and the devices we can attach to them and the uses we can make of them - wield great power and control. Those who control the networks will define what innovation at what price, can happen. Open networks are a great threat to many established players, both corporate and governmental.
The kinds of networks we allow will shape the kind of future we have. The mobile device is already roaming. It is carrying traditional voice calls, but that's just the tip of possibility. What happens beyond the tip is driven by who can create, who can deploy, and who can use and access the network economically.
Science fiction dreamers would settle fantasy worlds by setting up communication networks first. Tales of evolving civilization almost always have their worlds take on the challenge of communicating across distance. Communication in all its forms is the glue of society.
So look at that cell phone in your hand again and see it in a whole new light, the light of the devices that changed the world.
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