Our Wi-Fi, Our Wireless Future: A Conversation with Michael Calabrese

Nearly 90 percent of the internet traffic to and from our smartphones never touch our mobile carrier’s network. Instead, that traffic flows seamlessly through Wi-Fi, and that’s no accident. Wi-Fi is available for us to use because a whole host of people and organizations have spent decades preserving and expanding invisible airwaves known as spectrum on behalf of the American public. One of those people is Michael Calabrese, director of Wireless Future at New America’s Open Technology Institute. Calabrese describes his ultimate "Wireless Future" as "seamless wireless connectivity ... There would no longer be a digital divide based on your income or the service you can afford, and that will be really important as the Internet of Things continues to proliferate and AI ties it all together. It will be essential that everyone has the same baseline of excellent connectivity. Next-generation Wi-Fi and shared public spectrum are central to making that wireless future a reality."