Unlimited Airwaves

Dan Gillmor has an article concerning the notion of scarcity of the airwaves, which has long been a testament of faith at the FCC. Recent advances in technology may render that testament false.

Comments

Finger waggling...

[KFury]

Let's watch our semantics here: Breakthroughs in technology would render the testament obsolete. Rendering the testament false implies an admission that the testament was made while ignoring the technological realities. That isn't the case here.

Flag Day for consumers

[srmalloy]

While it is true that the signal-processing capability has expanded to the point where it is technically feasible to pack the spectrum more tightly, the premise fails to address either the economic or political feasibility. How many people would be interested in having two hundred more stations in the FM band if it meant that they had to rip out their existing car stereo and replace it with a $500 (low end) software-controlled radio to listen to them, and if they didn't, all they'd get on their stereo was a random hash of noise because their old radio can't separate the stations?

Look at how effectively HDTV has replaced the existing television broadcasts, for example. Unless you can replace all the hardware in use on a spectrum band at the same time, you're faced with the choice of retaining backward compatibility -- which defeats the purpose of the upgrade -- or cutting off the people who don't want or can't upgrade.

For specific and short-range purposes, such as wireless LANs, it may be practical to require a complete end-to-end replacement, but there are large parts of the EM spectrum that are currently in use for which the entrenched interests will lobby strongly against any disruption

Re:They should be regulated

[MonsterChicharo]

Ok, there may be lots of bandwidth and frequencies, but to unregulate all of it is to say the same as "The USA has a lot a land that people could drive on, so why have traffic laws?". Not quite on point, but food for thought....

'unregulate' is one thing. Stop selling exclusive rights on certain frecuencies is another. The point here is that when a resource is no longer scarce, it no longer can be sold (for there would be no buyers). Governments around the world would have to stop selling frecuencies. They would regulate them alright, but not sell them.

Just what is he saying ?

[sane?]

Having trawled through the presentation on his site, it appears it boils down to:

• If you use better technology (low power, repeaters, signal extraction) then you can fit more information into the same bandwidth.
• You could always use more bandwidth.
• Private industry is better at cooperating than the government is a regulation.

At no point does he really try and dispute Shannon, there is a finite limit to the information that can be transmitted, he just thinks we should be smarter at approaching that theoretical limit. He does the usual job of trying to confuse the issue and make it more complicated than it actually is, but when you get down to it, its fairly obvious.

Now I'd tend to agree that we could do with being smarter. But to say that the commercial world is going to make systems that all work nicely together is just plain ignoring realities. Look at the 802.11 / Bluetooth cockup - in reality the aim will be the fast buck and market share. If you can do that by riding roughshod over the competition, so much the better.

In the end you need to engineer a balance between the short term and long term perspectives. I'd agree that its wrong at the moment, but that is a call to shake up the regulations and those that create them, not to throw out all long term thought in an orgy of competing, incompatible systems.

Maybe we could start by allocating bandwidth to particular purposes on a lease term basis. Once you reach the end of your term, you have to show that continuing to allow you that bandwidth is the optimum use for the next lease period, if not, then no bandwidth.

Maybe then we would have faster evolution, and even revolution, in the use of the EM spectrum.

Re:Just what is he saying ?

[WolfWithoutAClause]

Now I'd tend to agree that we could do with being smarter. But to say that the commercial world is going to make systems that all work nicely together is just plain ignoring realities.

The internet is a counterexample. There are plenty of ways to deliberately mess up the IP protocol- some of which may sometimes give you more bandwidth. However, in most cases people/companies don't do this.

Also, it's quite possible for the FCC to put conditions on licensing particular parts of the spectrum- 'we only allow hardware that follows standard XXX' or some such ruling. Manufacturers would then have to produce hardware that followed the relevant standard, or they'd be sued by their consumers.

Look at the 802.11 / Bluetooth cockup - in reality the aim will be the fast buck and market share. If you can do that by riding roughshod over the competition, so much the better.

If you can... don't forget that some of the equipment around may decide not to talk to you if you break the rules. That may even be part of the standard.

credibility?

[hackman]

This article comes across like a sci-fi movie, very aloof. The writer paraphrases and quotes from what another guy supposedly said, with no indication of technical facts or other groups or individuals that agree. I have no reason to believe the author and subject are credible, making it hard to trust the article. I'm not the most knowledgable on the FCC's policies, but I don't tend to believe this "evangalist" in general.

However technically speaking, there are some points that sound feasible and are likely true. I would expect that the FCC does inhibit inventors and small companies that have good ideas. Their licensing fees and other policies do make startup "disruptive technologies" difficult, which is exactly what the established companies that already have spectrum want. However some areas of the spectrum (i.e. 2.4GHz, etc) are open, and he fails to address the collision problems that exist in those areas. I think we are now beginning to see hardware in the free spectrums that is capable of dealing with very noisy environments, but in my eyes that equipment is still in it's infancy. (If someone knows more on that please reply to this post on this subject..)
I would say once these technologies are proven, the FCC should listen, but in the meantime there is a LOT of equipment that isn't capable of dealing with this and could become rather useless if the spectrum is opened up. Seems like a logical approach, before changing the regulation system. Prove your point, man! Gimme some examples.

Paradox of the Best Network

[cpeterso]

This is an example of the Paradox of the Best Network:

• The best network has the fewest added features and functions
  
• The best network just moves bits
  
• But a stupid bit-moving network is a commodity
  
• The telcos like smart networks
  
• The Internet succeeds because it's stupid
  
• The Internet's success threatens the telcos
  
• This is about politics, not just business

The End of the Anonymous Listener?

[Dan Crash]

Reed's quote about "network operation increasing capacity" obscures an important loss -- the loss of the anonymous listener. It seems that for this technology to work, receivers are going to have to be independently addressable, broadcasting your listening or viewing choices to the public. How's that grab you?

The anonymous listener is fundamental to democracy. Imagine a world where you fear to stay on a given channel too long, for fear that someone is going to associate you with the views being expressed. This is the kind of thing that we should be steering away from with new technologies, not toward.

Couple this with the fact that there's not exactly a lack of spectrum in the first place: 90% of the channels on your UHF dial are sitting there doing nothing right now because the FCC and Congress prefer THAT to leasing them to nonprofit organizations at a reduced rate.

Like most of our current "technological" problems, what's broken isn't electronic but human.

i dont get it

[isorox]

Why cant we just use higher and higer frequencies? 2GHz full? Use 20GHz? Or 50GHz? Or a googlehertz?

why not PM?

[PsiPsiStar]

If they can use aplitude modulation and frequency modulation to send signals, why don't they also use polarity modulation and get one more channel?
Since it's free, PM could be reserved for digital devices.

I'll take the FCC over corporations any day

[Ryan C.]

Watching the current battle for HDTV adoption makes me think that the FCC is really trying (somewhat ineptly) to work for the public good.

Media companies aren't interested in giving higher quality content to the public, but they need to deal with the FCC to get at the public's airwaves. Even then, they're fighting tooth and nail to only deliver the same old crud (480i) and pass it off as the HDTV they promised congress. Oh, and by the way, they want to encrypt the content and control all receivers to eliminate that pesky "time shifting" thing that seems to be all the rage.

Deregulating the airwaves, even though it might be a good idea technically in the long run, would remove the only stick the republic has to hit corporations with. IMHO, information flow is too important to risk for the sake of maximizing profits.

-Ryan C.