Standardization and Regulation...

The future of telecommunications and information sharing will undoubtedly be unified.  Cellular, telephone, cable, radio, satellite, and other data networks will one day be synchronized and ideas on how exactly and in what form this will come about are currently being formulated.  With the development of wireless technologies coinciding with this drive towards unification, it seems logical that the two efforts will run in parallel and evolve together.  This poses a concern to many participants in the commercial wireless market as individual protocol development and network incompatibility (especially in the area of cellular technologies) has always been a mainstay in the ability to raise revenue and secure loyal customer bases.

Much pressure has been placed on the government and other regulating standards authorities (FCC, IEEE) by many groups to set forth and clearly define a set of centralized protocols from which companies can develop their products around.  In the 1980’s, the FCC made large-scale efforts to set such standards and control the predominate technologies in the cellular arena.  But during the 1990’s, the FCC moved away from their intervening tactics in an effort to stimulate the field and allow for the research to grow boundlessly.  While development did indeed take off, each provider became fixed on the notion that control over their own protocol would garner greater revenue potential and thus more emphasis was placed on individual development than on a compromised intermediate.  The end result of this attitude is yet to be known, but there is no question it will prove to be one of the more difficult obstacles in the efforts to unify wireless standards.  No matter how difficult, however, recent mergers and network sharing agreements have shown that compatibility is realizable and operationally possible.

And so the onus is now placed on the government to either offer incentives to companies in an effort to coax them into unification or to declare a mandate making compliance obligatory.  Current trends in actions have implied that the government will be taking the high road in this matter; calling for the FCC to get back involved in the process and slowly pushing companies towards unification.  But unless Congress acts firmly and carries with it the weigh of sanctioning, the length of time to integration will be drawn out much longer than it should and global unification will be severely delayed.

A large component to the slow unification process also comes from the established hardware present in use today.  Wireless technologies at the user level work on signal reception (and sometimes transmission) and were built proprietarily with concern only for compliance on the issuing network.  If a unification procedure was to occur, testing would have to be done to ensure that these components would still function appropriately and a massive effort to retrofit or replace noncompliant hardware would have to be undertaken.  With the public unwilling to take on such a large expense, the cost burden would thus have to be shared across the industry.  And with no promise to added revenue or income sources due to the unification, it is easy to see why the controlling parties are resistant to taking on such an expense.  This is why the government must subsidize the project and act concurrently with experts to find the most cost effective solution to the problem at hand. 

Manufacturers of wireless technologies have also proven to be a great asset in the effort.  By creating multi-network devices (devices compatible on different network protocols) and willingly adopting standards (ie- IEEE 802.11x standard for commercial wireless routing) they are ensuring that future and replacement technologies will be ready and equipped for the integration process.  As time goes by and components are slowly upgraded to newer ones, much of the replacement effort will in fact be done automatically.  With that, however, it would still take a massive effort to ensure that the process will be completed in a reasonable amount of time.

Generating a unified set of standards will also prove to be a difficult task in the unification process.  Firstly, a potential conflict of interest may arise in situations in which the chosen standard may favor one party over another.  For example, if for cellular technologies the PCS system with which Sprint runs on is adopted, other competing companies may feel both cheated and disadvantaged in the marketplace.  Thus, the standards set forth must be reached at through compromise across the board.  Secondly, the future and development of the standard and its focus must be clearly defined.  If a loose standard is adopted and changes are needed shortly after, the public and corporate outcry over the costs of obtaining and/or upgrading materials would far outweigh the benefits gained through unification.  Certain consideration must also be placed on procedures for allowing other countries to adopt or implement complimentary standards, as the United States dictates much of what goes on around the globe. 

The interoperability of the new standard with both wired and the old wireless standards (during the transition phase) would also be of great concern.  Experts predict that by 2010, wireless and wired technologies will serve an equal number of users (Hermann, 1997).  That forecast not only quantifies the massive outreach of the wireless revolution, but also draws attention to the everlasting presence of the wired technologies.  While end-user devices may all one day be wireless, mainframes and high bandwidth systems in which mobility is not a priority concern will more than likely remain wired.  This means that each standard must have a separate declaration for integration with such devices.  During the transition, it is also important that the standard stay compatible with the current devices and protocols in use.  It would be impossible to have to shut down wireless operations during the changeover procedures, and thus it must be accounted for.

Once standardization has been fully accounted for with respect to each industry, a regulatory body must then ensure that the interoperability transcends across networks and across mediums.  The current definitive force behind this regulation is the FCC (Federal Communications Commission), which has set many requirements that are enforced and in use today.  These requirements will prove necessary to enable communication across the technologies and would require auditing to ensure proper rules are enforced.  Current requirements on local telephone companies and cellular providers (with respect to calls made to and from cellular to wired lines) may serve as a proper guideline for future provisions.  As we move into a new age in wireless, however, many more relationships will need to be defined for the emerging technologies - GSM, PCS, ESMR - and thus the system must evolve to accommodate these changes. 

In addition to defining such rules, this regulatory body would also be responsible for defining developmental guidelines to help curb the problems we will face with respect to signal interference and EMI.  Wireless technologies work through signal reception, emission, and broadcast.  Due to increases in the use of wireless products, situations in which these signals will interfere with each other will become all the more common and garbled data/signal loss will become an unavoidable consequence.  This means that many system critical wireless components, such as health or aircraft control systems, at one point or another may be rendered inoperable for a period of time.  Downtime associated with such critical systems could lead to disaster and protocols to remedy such situations must be defined.  This problem will prove to be difficult to overcome and may severely curtail the growth of wireless communication; however, solutions do seem possible.  One possible resolution may come in signal prioritization schemes in which a ‘higher priority’ signal will take precedence over a ‘lower priority’ signal.  Implementing such a system would, however, be difficult, but research is currently being conducted to explore its potential.  Preventing criminals and terrorists from exploiting interference vulnerabilities would also be a task that needs to be looked into.

The Failures of 9/11...           

During the attacks on September 11^th, 2001, the vulnerabilities and potential infrastructure failures of wireless communication methods were brought to center stage.  Immediately after the tragic events in New York City, rescue operators were dispatched to the scene and the recovery effort was set underway.  During this effort, however, many rescuers were horrifically forced to ‘go it alone’ as their communications mediums were rendered useless.  Due to the collapsing buildings, many of the cell-phone towers and signal stations erected in the area had been knocked down, severely limiting the number of available access nodes.  The precious few available nodes, however, were being occupied by the increased demand from civilians trying to escape or otherwise contact their loved ones, both inside and outside the buildings.  Much of the long-range information and cellular-based communication methods were thus too unreliable for use and had to be abandoned.

An even more pressing concern came with the failure of the short range communicative devices; devices expected and relied upon to function regardless of changing external conditions.  With such a massive recovery effort underway, many different departments were called upon (from many states across the country) to help in any way in which they could.  To the disbelief of the project coordinators, most of the different departments were using incompatible protocols for their walkie-talkies and short range audio devices.  This severely hindered communication across the networks and led to a state of information chaos.  Police to fire communication was also shut down and the problems were intensified as workers were slowly learning that they could not communicate with each other.  Rescuers are trained to heavily rely on communication feeds constantly supplying them with the information they need to better conduct their searches.  Without this information, they were putting themselves at even greater danger by going into the buildings.  Sadly, many perished as a result.  But their efforts were not in vain.  The public and safety administration had seen firsthand that something had to be done to fix matters and resources have been appropriated for such an endeavor.

To fix the protocol related issues, a standardization scheme would have to be implemented (as discussed earlier) and devices in use today would need to adhere to it.  Many would fear that this would temporarily shutdown efforts during the transition, but if dual-protocol devices are considered, much of the worry can be mitigated.  The other main consideration would come in the form of the wireless prioritization system discussed previously in an effort to resolve the cellular congestion issues.  The importance of such a system has already been considered by the NCS (National Communications System) and Cingular Wireless has been picked to develop the program nationally.  This program is set to go live during the summer of 2005 and current plans are to, in times of congestion, move authorized parties to the top of the calling queues so that their communications are passed through (3G Americas, 2004).

Concerns Of an Unbounded Medium... 

“At this point, we’ve learned how to protect wired networks quite well. Protecting data as it travels through the air is another thing.” – DISA Official

A government is responsible for efforts related to and surrounding its national security in an attempt to secure and instill certain levels of confidence in its citizenry.  This confidence in public safety and protection is what allows members of a society to live out their day-to-day lives and, in turn, contribute back to the government from which it is draws from.  By the very nature of this relationship, a government must at all costs protect and secure much of the information it retains or risk jeopardizing its operations.  This is most true in relation to cutting edge technologies or military actions to be undertaken; areas in which any lapses or breaches can end up costing substantial amounts of capital and/or lead to a severe number of casualties.  In reshaping the American communications network infrastructure, this concern has remained paramount to all parties involved.

In a simpler time, network intrusion involved some sort of physical vulnerability or access point intrusion.  Would-be perpetrators would have had to physically position themselves within the locale of their entry point, placing a great geographical constraint upon and creating a fear-inspiring deterrent to most.  Once access was granted, however, packet sniffing and encryption breaking techniques were easier to deploy.  During this time, breaches in national security and classified information stealing were heard of, but most instances had insider components to them and were largely unavoidable through protective means available at the time.  Global network unification efforts have undermined these security principles, however.  Today, seemingly any node connected to the internet has some level of vulnerability attached to it (either directly or indirectly) and physical proximity is no longer a concern.  Thus the trend in security has been shifted towards access authorization, encryption algorithms, network firewalling, and adaptive breach detection systems that play a large role in keeping the information secure. 

With wireless technologies, however, new problems have been raised.  Military installations and top-secret government offices are constantly monitored for listening devices designed that transmit audio or video to unauthorized parties.  With the widespread use of cellular phones and two-way communication devices, there has been an intense fear that this information sharing, knowingly or otherwise, is being conducted and the government has been forced into action.  Wireless networking has also opened up a new world of signal interception – one in which connection to the wired medium is no longer required.  An article in PCWorld magazine (Verton, August 2002) first alerted the public to the tremendous security lapses created by the new technology.  In the article, the results of an expert hired to check for vulnerabilities were published and led to many follow-up inspections in the area.  The expert was reported to have been able to detect a wireless signal from the Defense Information Systems Headquarters parking lot, obtain the IP addresses of many of the building’s most sensitive information systems, and run a complete network scan in a matter of a few minutes and by using standard equipment found in any computer hardware store.  The government acted swiftly afterwards by removing most of the wireless components in areas thought to be critical, but the case still accented the most tremendous fault in wireless security: wireless signals penetrate through walls and travel outwards until they are fully attenuated.

When the Pentagon was alerted to this study, they swiftly banned most forms of wireless technology from any areas in which classified information is stored.  Wireless networking components were also replaced in such areas and a doctrine prohibiting wireless connectivity to any classified information system was instated.  This concern has also led to a complete moratorium on cell phone possession in all ‘sensitive compartmented information facilities’ as the Pentagon guidelines declare that this is the only way to ensure that mobile phones will not be used against them.  Similar restrictions on other wireless devices are also in place and have been applied to all defense and security departments in the United States.  In non-classified areas, minimum criteria rules were set forth to enhance security measures, including designations and guidelines on intrusion detection, user authentication, and system disabling prevention.

Beyond the signal vulnerabilities of wireless communication come also the portability and ‘air medium’ components.  As far as portability, wireless components are traditionally made to be mobile and as they grow smaller, the risks of loss and theft increase.  No matter what the adopted policy on wireless signal broadcasting is, a top level official losing a PDA containing critical information could lead to catastrophic results.  Concern over “rogue” access points has also been considered.  If a wireless availability range is defined and secured, the threat of a repeating device placed somewhere in the coverage area could cause access control problems.  Such a device would effectively increase the size of the coverage area, and if unaccounted for, would allow an intruder to make a connection into the network.  Another key area of concern comes in the medium’s susceptibility to signal jamming (in which overriding data is transmitted at the same frequency of the wireless transmission) and denial of service attacks.  Many predict that the next major terrorist attack will be non-physical and targeted towards systems designed to protect the livelihood of the country.  In times of war or even during normal operations, the negative repercussions of a malicious wireless network shutdown could lead to severe problems and irreversible loss.

Yet the adoption of a regressive policy towards wireless communications will not solve anything.  The promise and potential for wireless makes modification of the technology and its implementation a top governmental priority.  Signal absorption devices have been proposed and are currently being tested in hopes to be able to set definitive boundaries to a network’s reach and limit any intrusion attempts from outside.  Higher level authentication protocols have also been written to improve security to those within the accessible ranges.  Biometric (largely in the form of fingerprinting) authentication has also been proposed and is currently under development.  As the Department of Defense begins to buy back into the feasibility of the technology, radical changes should come about in both the consumer and governmental markets, sewing up many of the holes present today. 

A Military Perspective

 The potential for wireless communication and weaponry control in military applications seems unlimited.  Resources have been heavily invested in the development of the technologies by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) under project Glomo (Goodman, 1997) and their efforts have been rewarded generously.  Wireless camera systems are now implemented in times of war to create extensive surveillance networks by which military planners can judge the enemy without putting units in harm’s way.  Cellular phone companies have made it public that they possess the ability to track a user down to the area of a city block (in some instances even when the phone is off), enabling accurate and dynamic positioning of an enemy target.  Wireless triangulation sensors placed in areas as large as cities can pinpoint and discern between sounds (such as gunfire), feeding information to central computers that provide data useful in combat.  “Smart Missiles” not only work to destroy targets, but are also equipped with cameras that wirelessly feed still images and video back to a base for reconnaissance considerations.  Yet with each technology comes a set of drawbacks that must be considered or can lead to costly failure.

The first widespread use of a wireless technology in the military came in the radio communications devices designed to connect officers and soldiers together in and out of combat.  These devices were proven to be an invaluable resource from the start, and so tragedy struck when failures arose during the first Gulf War.  Part of the problems with the radio systems came from the outdated technology used by the military in designing them.  An effort has been undertaken to update the linking technologies and broadcasting methods, but older and more error-prone units still seem to be in use today.  Beyond the largely local scope of the radio communication systems comes a heavy dependence on mobile satellites to link over large geographical areas.  Satellite methods are often more reliable and less susceptible to attack than land-based ones, but the cost and coordination that must go into synchronization with a satellite makes them largely ineffective for high-speed mobile use.

Many of the problems the military has had to deal with in regard to their communications systems are heavily accented by the fact that the information transmitted can be so vital.  Wireless devices are inherently poor at power conservation in both transmission and reception.  In transmitting a wireless signal over an open medium, much of its amplitude will also have been depleted by the time it reaches the receiving node (requiring higher initial signal states and amplification upon reception).  With these issues, great concern must be placed in assuring that the receiving node has adequate power (through a mobile source) and that this power does not run out during operation.  Also, as demand has grown for device functionality and options, power drain considerations have not been met by source manufacturers.  Thus, many precautions must be taken to ensure that a soldier is not left stranded with a dead communications device and no form of backup.

In communicating wirelessly, there is also the ever-present security threat characteristic to the use of an open medium.  Signal interception teams are not only present, but active parts of a deployed military operation.  Of greatest concern would be a purely analog form of communication in which encryption would not be possible and the signal would be transmitted in its completed form.  In such an instance, any node tuned into the correct frequency would be able to pick up the same signal being heard by the designated party.  With the evolving technology, however, digital systems have become the dominant form and encryption algorithms have been written to enhance the security of the devices.  Yet, with the focus on security, through device theft or encryption cracking a potential intruder could obtain real-time access to transmissions and gain considerable advantages in combat.

Wireless also presents a tremendous potential with respect to mobile operations, in which an alternative communications medium may not be present.  The future of military communications is headed towards tactical cellular base deployment (Rand, 1998) in which a low-flying plane can serve as a mobile phone tower that can relay or broadcast messages to nodes in its service area.  Such systems present tremendous promise and many see the great changes that will be brought about by the evolution in the technology.