Wi-Fi Networks and the Reorganization of Wireline—Wireless Relationship

Sawhney, Harmeet

doi:10.1007/1-84628-248-9_4

Cited by 7 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…4 For example, IDM enabled me to anticipate certain developments in wi-fi technologies and also make further projections. IDM could be employed without any reference to canal, railroads, and other technologies whose study led to the development of the model (Sawhney, 2003(Sawhney, , 2005. If I had made simplistic comparisons, today I would have been comparing railroads to wi-fi and that would not have been very productive.…”

Section: Parallels With Old Technologiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strategies for Increasing the Conceptual Yield of New Technologies Research

Sawhney¹

2007

Communication Monographs

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Mobile is the new technology of the day. But we need to keep in mind that it is the latest new technology. In other words, there have been new technologies in the past and there will be more in the future. Mobile is certainly worthy of scholarly attention. However, the exercise will be more productive if we expand the frame within which we situate mobile.One of the disappointments of past new technology research has been that it has very often stayed at the descriptive level. The tendency seems to be getting amplified with each new technology because of the increasing opportunities to capture data. Consequently, researchers often let data gathering and analysis techniques drive their research rather than a substantive theoretical question. The research thus produced has an unfortunate market research feel to it, especially the numerous studies on the demographic and psychographic profiles of mobile users. What then is the hallmark of scholarship? The answer has to be theory development.Unfortunately, even studies that are situated within a theoretical framework often do not advance theory. For instance, with the arrival of each new technology, one can be assured of inevitable papers on its diffusion. They will be meticulous in form with an extensive literature review, a theoretical vocabulary, and a sophisticated methodology. Their main claim to fame will be that they were among the first to study the diffusion of a particular new technology. Furthermore, they will even get published in established journals for the very same reason. But it will be a pleasant surprise if they advance diffusion theory (Sawhney & Sandvig, 2006). 1 Do we need diffusion studies for every new technology? There should be a theoretical rationale for each new diffusion study. Otherwise, we are simply running Harmeet Sawhney (PhD, University of Texas-Austin) is a professor of telecommunications at

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Section: Parallels With Old Technologiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strategies for Increasing the Conceptual Yield of New Technologies Research

Sawhney¹

2007

Communication Monographs

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“…Even then, in 2001 Nicholas Duforcq, a divisional director of France Telecom, went so far as to say, "Our strategy has been to promote Minitel as a complementary service to Internet -not in direct competition to it" (McGrath, 2001). The grassroots Wi-Fi networks were similarly a surprise (Lehr and McKnight, 2003;Sawhney, 2003Sawhney, , 2005. Today the idea of an open cell seems preposterous but it may come to pass with all the hacker activity directed in that direction.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

From hierarchy to open configurations: decentralization and user-generated content

Sawhney

Suri

2014

Media, Culture & Society

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This article calls for research on new technologies at a level of analysis where what seems unchanged is salient and yet the newness of the new technology is given due consideration. It demonstrates the value of this approach by analyzing the decentralization of information systems wherein user-generated content eventually provided the unexpected winning solution for service providers who had long struggled in making their content attractive to the public at large. It identifies three stages in the decentralization process: hierarchy (top-down), open-hierarchy (top-down network, bottom-up content creation), and un-order (bottom-up). The analysis indicates that the Achilles’ heel of hierarchical systems is content creation and that creates pressure to move towards more open configurations that allow for user-generated content. The authors suggest that the framework presented in this article will prompt a more sophisticated analysis of the next new technology even if it does not have a similar development pattern.

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“…Recognition of the importance of communication infrastructures is also evident in established work on other related technical developments that have been crucial to the successful functioning of mobile communication and location positioning. This includes, to name just a few examples, scholarship on mobile phone and Wi-Fi standards and infrastructures, and the politics of their establishment, negotiation, and settlement (see e.g., Doyle, 2015;Goggin, 2006Goggin, , 2011Mackenzie, 2010;Sawhney, 2005), and work that documents the manifold ways that existing mobile phone infrastructures-mobile phone network cells, base station transmitters, and GPS-provide important means of determining a phone user's location (see e.g., Goggin, 2006, pp. 195-197;Ling & Donner, 2009, pp.…”

Section: Wi-fi and Infrastructuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Communication infrastructures and the contest over location positioning

Wilken

2019

Mobile Media & Communication

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This article builds on renewed critical awareness of the significance of, and need to understand, the material infrastructures that underpin and, importantly, also sustain mobile communication. The focus of this article is on the fluctuating fortunes of one U.S. company: Skyhook Wireless. The company was founded in 2003 with the explicit aim of exploring and developing systems that responded to a very specific communication infrastructure related challenge: how to calculate location positioning from Wi-Fi signals rather than from cellular towers or by using GPS? In this article, I detail the technical means by which they achieved this, and examine how the strength of Skyhook’s position in the field of location positioning and analysis became a key factor driving Google’s highly contentious Street View program for extracting and recording Wi-Fi access point and payload data. Through this analysis of Skyhook Wireless and its technical achievements, this article aims to contribute valuable new knowledge to our understanding of the location-related operations of mobile devices; the infrastructures associated with these operations; and the businesses that have emerged around, draw on, contribute to, and have come to dominate, these infrastructural systems.

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Wi-Fi Networks and the Reorganization of Wireline—Wireless Relationship

Cited by 7 publications

References 6 publications

Strategies for Increasing the Conceptual Yield of New Technologies Research

Strategies for Increasing the Conceptual Yield of New Technologies Research

From hierarchy to open configurations: decentralization and user-generated content

Communication infrastructures and the contest over location positioning

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