Spectrum Wars: The Hidden Battle

PacketMaster writes: "The USA Today is carrying an interesting commentary entitled All-but-secret battle rages over fate of airwaves. The article sheds light on some topics that many people are completely ignorant on - the fight over the broadcast spectrum. The most interesting tidbit is that the current broadcasters, who were given the new digital spectrum for applications like HDTV for free, now want to keep their old ones too and auction them off for industry profit to help pay for the transition to the new spectrum."

Comments

socialize costs, privatize profits

[gokubi]

Gore Vidal, the great American essayist, novelist and playright said, "When you hear the word privitization, there is a burglar lurking."

Digital Radio

[Anonymous Coward]

I think digital radio would be a logical first step before digital TV - there's tons of wasted spectrum b/c of the pathetically outdated mandatory distance frequencies.

Fix the easy stuff first (or at least concurrently).

Re:Digital Radio

[John Miles]

It's not clear what you mean by "wasted spectrum," or what benefits you expect to come from reclaiming it.

The entire AM broadcast band takes up the same bandwidth as one-fourth of a conventional TV channel. Like the entire MF/HF spectrum, it's completely useless for anything besides voice communication due to limited bandwidth and excessive noise.

The entire FM broadcast band occupies the equivalent of 5 TV channels. Any attempt to monkey with the FM BC allocation will render hundreds of millions of home and car radios obsolete. If you think DTV is a political boondoggle that offers insufficient benefits to consumers, you wouldn't want to think about messing with FM.

Re:Digital Radio

[silicon_synapse]

There are several providers of satellite radio. The target market is mostly high end cars. Two popular ones are Sirius Radio and XM Radio. If I had the money, I'd love to give it a try. I believe they're subscription based, but it's probably well worth it. Has anyone here used such a service?

US problems

[jahjeremy]

The most damning quote:

After Congress gave broadcasters public airwaves worth $70 billion -- or far more -- on the condition that they would return their analog spectrum to the public in a timely fashion, they now want to keep both, auction one off and pocket the proceeds!

Reeks of typical American corporate machinations.
1) Get something for the government for free / dirt cheap.
2) Go back on the contract / agreement.
3) Make bucketloads of cash.
4) Government (and taxpayers) suck it up

With analog TV, digital TV, satellite TV, cellphones, emergency services, police and fire communications, etc., we have a serious shortage of spectrum.

Rather than a a shortage of bandwidth, I think the true problem in the States is a lack of decent, informed, relatively unbiased regulation headed by the Fed and too many interested parties such as corporations with a lot of money and lawyers.

HDTV is a disaster

[YIAAL]

The whole HDTV plan is a disaster. No one is buying HDTV (and, reports to the contrary, I don't think it looks significantly better, so I don't think anyone will). You can't force people to buy it, and you can't deploy it when no one has it.

It's a spectrum-hungry technology that no one really wants. Plus, it's a big selloff to companies that don't deserve the help.

Real Privatization

[Arandir]

This quasi-privatization of the airwaves combines the worst of both worlds, with few, if any, of the best. All the worst of government regulation, and all the worst of business since they control a product which someone else owns.

Let's have real privatization of the airwaves. Yes, their is a fixed amount of frequencies available, but the market works for other fixed resources, like real estate. Will there be some large players that will grab up large chunks of frequencies? Of course! But I would rather have half a dozen mega conglomerates competing with each other, than a single government agency accountable to no one at all. (and of course, government regulation has done nothing to hinder the current crop of megacorps, but plenty to keep the small independent off the market)

How would it work in practice? Just take a look at the internet. Next to zero regulation, backbones that in many areas are fixed resources, heavy commercialization, yet there are unlimited opportunities for individuals, non-profits, and other noncommercial organizations.

Re:They want their cake AND eat it?

[Detritus]

It isn't "their spectrum" in the first place. They hold licenses to broadcast in the public interest and convenience. The licenses are not a property right, they are a privilege that can be modified or terminated at any time. Sometimes they forget that.

Information on spectrum giveaway and renewal

[Sarcasmooo!]

The digital spectrum, estimated to be worth $70 billion, was given away in 1996, to existing broadcasters. Prior to that, the spectrum was public property due to be auctioned off to broadcasters; after all, who but the public as a whole could be justified in having defacto ownership of something so widespread and intangible? Auctions like these created a balance of public interests, and offered opportunities to American businesses. By 'renting' this public property, business could flourish while operating under guidelines that ensured the public's airwaves would serve the public good. A plutocratic minority would love to tell you about how the evil government is censoring their broadcasts, but the truth is that airwaves that are won through these auctions are regulated by a 'public good' that is defined by public commentary to the FCC. These auctions are the ultimate example of free-market in a democracy, because the buck stops at the people.

But with the Telecommunications Act of 1996, it was Trent Lott who prohibited the auctions, and forced the FCC to give licenses away. The act also prohibited consideration of anyone but the renewal applicant for the license, assuring that only the owners of the ill-gotten licenses would be keeping them, and I quote:

`(4) COMPETITOR CONSIDERATION PROHIBITED- In making the
determinations specified in paragraph (1) or (2), the
Commission shall not consider whether the public interest,
convenience, and necessity might be served by the grant of a
license to a person other than the renewal applicant.'.

You do the math.

Deciding whether to side with the FCC or with Corporate America in this matter is easy. I live in a democracy; if I don't like the government I can run for office and change it. I don't like Carnivore, Echelon, the DMCA, and I would like to play a significant role in having the NSA and the CIA dissolved and opened to the scrutiny of the world. Why does it work this way when 90% of the country, left and right, libertarian and conservative, doesn't like it? Why can't I change the way this government works? It's because no one takes office without large corporate donors behind them, and no one campaigns without the millions of dollars needed to get themselves on corporate airwaves. The public would never know your name, and that would gaurantee you a sideline seat for the election debates that, by the way, happen to be corporate-sponsored as well. It's one big joke.

No, we won't see problems with interference

[megalomang]

The reason that the spectrum is partitioned off is precisely why we won't have interference. Each band is regulated and has either sufficient guard band so that the energy "leakage" into adjacent bands is minimal or simply has a prescribed permissable leakage that the adjacent band can tolerate.

Digital communication is inherently immune to noise caused by several types of interference. Many channel encoding schemes exist precisely to deal with interference that is typical of the frequency range of the band, doppler effects, echoes, etc. Yes, there is a statistically small amount of bit error you will receive given a statistically small amount of noise energy present in the band, but there is no recent trend of rising noise energy in any given frequency band.

So don't worry, your phone, tv, AM/FM radio, talkabout, bluetooth device, etc will not eventually stop working due to the noise level passing some magic threshold.

For more info, look at the frequency allocation on the FCC web pages:
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/osmhome/allochrt.pdf