Hi Rob S.,
The Green 4G template that you have presented is familiar. While it's more sophisticated, its nonetheless similar in some ways to the original telecommuting visions of the 80s that also resulted in stirring arguments that were made to employers and employees alike about the environmental and economic virtues of conservation. It also calls to mind a growing list of other frameworks, still theoretical for the most part, based on the concept of "netness". I've both read about and even written or posted about interconnectedness, aka netness, in recent years, as I'm sure you and others here have, as well. More recently, a fellow forum member on the Cook Report list has written extensively on the subject, mentioned, in passing, in the following blog passage by Gordon Cook (I'm not sure if the full-blown paper has been published yet):
Why the Internet Must Become a Public “Good” May 31st, 2007 by Gordon Cook gordoncook.net --
From the Green4G Web site: In the first bullet item, did you (or whomever wrote it) actually mean to state: "For 4G to be used to reduce telecommuting by 30% and overall automobile use by 20% per capita by 2030?"
Or was that merely a typo or an oversight, where the intent was to suggest reducing "vehicular commuting" by 30% by increasing dependence on telecommuting?
The ideas presented are, for the most part (where I understand them) sound, even laudable, but I wouldn't limit its scope or focus to a specific technology framework such as 4G, or anything else with identifiable boundaries, since doing so suggests the exclusion of all else. Or worse, it can easily run into a brick wall the first time a 5G framework is proposed, just as some 2.0 initiatives, even a few company names today, will find when the 3.0 moniker picks up a head of buzz.
I also find some of the agenda items premature, given the still-nascent stage at which 4G finds itself today. Down the road, perhaps, it would be desirable to "Profile demonstration projects", for example, but when would doing so actually be viable? OK, profiling doesn't require a working platform, granted, if it's just a projection of things to come. Is that what was meant?
More on the name: If seamless WiFi is seen as part of the 4G blend and, presumably, still-unknown versions of x/y/zG WBB beyond that which is currently (despite however vaguely) considered 4G today, as well, then why impose a limitation by declaring it a Green 4G initiative? I think I'd prefer framing it with something that is more generic-sounding, something that still gets the point across that it's wireless connectivity that would be the central driver to effecting the benefits you've cited, but without calling it by a singularly-identifiable set of technology specifications, fwiw.
FAC
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