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Over two years ago, ahead of the US 700MHz auctions, Google awarded itself the role of chief lobbyist for an open mobile internet, and set out its four-point plan - open access, open application interfaces, open interconnection of networks, and compulsory wholesaling. Although the FCC wholeheartedly adopted only the first of these, there has been significant progress since on the software front, with many carriers publishing their APIs and supporting standard, open source technologies. But the most disruptive aspect of Google's vision remains scarcely addressed, and the search giant, intent on its own carrier alliances, has been quiet about it lately - until last week, when Vint Cerf, the firm's chief internet evangelist, raised the issue of open spectrum all over again.

In its 2007 campaign, Google wanted the FCC - and other regulators round the world - to force operators to allow third parties to interconnect with their networks at any technically feasible point, to enable roaming and services like geolocation. It also called for cellcos to be made to open up their networks to third parties - not just with classic long term MVNO deals but, eventually, on an 'on-demand' basis that would support small providers of specialist services. Some greenfield operators, like Clearwire (in which Google invests) have gone some way to creating a model that is largely based on multiple wholesalers but Google has not dropped its more radical view of the mobile future.

Cerf believes these goals are still attainable and are underpinned by another aspect of mobile openness - open spectrum. He told the Open Mobile Summit in San Francisco last week that new modulation schemes, namely OFDM, allow the sharing of spectrum between multiple parties for the first time, making the assumption of one carrier/one license outdated. OFDM, the basis of WiMAX and LTE, splits the band into multiple sub-channels and this could enable the industry to make far more efficient use of spectrum, he argued. "The technology is at a point where we should allow multiple parties to occupy the same spectral space," he said. "We can make a lot better use of the spectrum than we are today."

Cerf also turned his attention to the TCP/IP protocols, saying they needed to be adapted or replaced for mobile networks. Mobile IP has always had its shortcomings in handling rapid movement between nodes, and Cerf suggested that new protocols could even be used - such as those he has recently helped develop at US space agency NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, for communicating between planets, no less (but also being tested to link remote communities in Scandinavia. "The mobile environment is very hostile," Cerf said. "It could take advantage of more resilient protocols than TCP/IP, which is very brittle." Better protocols are also needed for another aspect of the Google view of how the future mobile web will look - fully ad hoc networks, which will need new approaches to authentication.

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