In business, Open Communication (or Open Access to Communication resources) can be a term used to describe a concept that anyone, on equal conditions with a transparent relation between cost and pricing, can get access to and share communication resources on one level to provide value added services on another level in a layered communication system architecture. Simply put, Open Access plans are to deregulate oligarchy

Oligarchy

Oligarchy is a form of power structure in which power effectively rests with an elite class distinguished by royalty, wealth, family ties, commercial, and/or military legitimacy...

 of telecom

Telecom

Telecom refers to:* An abbreviation of telecommunication.* Short for telecommunications company, in general.* A short name for any telecommunications company with "Telecom" specifically in the name, where context allows media or people to commonly exclude the rest of its name without confusion,...

 operators in a bid to give consumers more choices for equipment, services and service vendors or carriers. It will also provide some breathing room for the controversial Net Neutrality that has been the central issue between mobile carriers, like AT&T, Verizon and Sprint Nextel, and web media moguls, like eBay, Amazon.com and Google.

Socioeconomic Impact

The concept of Open Access to Communication Resources is central in the ongoing transformation of the communication market from a "vertically integrated" market with a few operators owning and operating everything between the physical medium and the end-user, to an "open horizontal market" with an abundance of actors operating on different levels and providing value added services on top of each other.

Open Access is also a broad approach to policy and regulatory issues that starts from the question: what do we want to bring about outside of purely industry sector concerns? It places an emphasis on:

• empowering citizens
• encouraging local innovation, economic growth and investment
• getting the best from public and private sector contributions.

It is not simply about making micro-adjustments to the technical rules of the policy and regulatory framework but seeking to produce fundamental changes in the outcomes that can be delivered through it. Since the advent of World Wide Web

World Wide Web

The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...

 (WWW) in the early 1990s, the greatest advantage the web culture has brought about through dot.com boom-and-bust cycles is decentralization that has created more user-centric society, embracing diversity, practicality, voluntarism and egalitarianism in every field across the planet.

Layers in Data Communication System Architecture

The interesting layers in a data communication system architecture for terrestrial Optical Fibre Communication include:

• Physical passive infrastructure: right of way, ducts, fibre cables, fibre core terminated in an optical distribution frame with patch panels. Actors on this level includes real estate owners, both public and private, other infrastructure actors, such as power utility companies, railway companies, pipeline companies (water, gas, oil, etc.). Several fibre owners lease dark fibre to operators or end-users.

• Optical transmission including wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) providing several communication channels in the same fibre core. Fibre owners sometimes provide wavelengths rather than dark fibre, sometimes both.

• Link level: includes a variety of link level services for Local Area Network
  Local area network
  A local area network is a computer network that interconnects computers in a limited area such as a home, school, computer laboratory, or office building...
  
   LAN, Metropolitan Area Network
  Metropolitan area network
  A metropolitan area network is a computer network that usually spans a city or a large campus. A MAN usually interconnects a number of local area networks using a high-capacity backbone technology, such as fiber-optical links, and provides up-link services to wide area networks and the...
  
   MAN and Wide Area Network
  Wide area network
  A wide area network is a telecommunication network that covers a broad area . Business and government entities utilize WANs to relay data among employees, clients, buyers, and suppliers from various geographical locations...
  
   WAN implemented by switches, etc. Operators on this level include "service operator-neutral" network operators.

• Network level (IP), including unicast, multicast, anycast. Operators on this level include Internet Service Providers (ISPs)

• End-to-end transport level, including connection-oriented Transfer Control Protocol (TCP) and datagram (UDP). Commercial services on this level are rare.

• Services including session, presentation and application functionality, such as email (SMTP, POP, IMAP), web services (HTTP), File Transfer Protocol
  File Transfer Protocol
  File Transfer Protocol is a standard network protocol used to transfer files from one host to another host over a TCP-based network, such as the Internet. FTP is built on a client-server architecture and utilizes separate control and data connections between the client and server...
  
   (FTP), terminal access (TELNET
  TELNET
  Telnet is a network protocol used on the Internet or local area networks to provide a bidirectional interactive text-oriented communications facility using a virtual terminal connection...
  
  ), etc. Typical commercial actors on this level include Internet Cafes.

External links

• Report by Spintrack Consulting (funded by Infodev) on Open Access Models Open Access Models: Options for Improving Backbone Access in Developing Countries -with a Focus on Sub-Saharan Africa
• OECD's Competition Law and Policy Committee recommends structural separation for increased competition in public utilities Recommendation of the Council concerning Structural Separation in Regulated Industries
• FCC Majority Backs Open-Access Plan for Airwaves
• Google's battle for wireless spectrum
• FCC approves rules for airwaves sale
• http://www.oplan.org Non-Profit Foundation promoting the concept of Open Public Local Access Networks]