Revolutionary Ideas for Radio Regulation

gummint writes "Radio is becoming more important to the Internet (Wi-Fi, etc.) and to software (software defined radios, under the right conditions, could be very important). Unlike the Internet and software, there's no excuse for not recognizing right away huge public policy issues. To foster broader and more informed public discussion of radio regulation, I've posted a preliminary discussion paper on my website, galbithink.org. The abstract and outline are below. I hope that even persons without particular expertise in radio will take time to think about these issues and discuss them. Douglas Galbi, FCC Senior Economist."

Revolutionary Ideas for Radio Regulation

National and international broadband strategies should include radical changes in radio regulation. Radio technology is the key to rapid broadband development that reaches even geographically remote areas of the world. To get radical changes in radio regulation, a new world-wide conversation is needed around three questions.

• First, what is a good separation and balance of powers in radio regulation?
• Second, how should radio regulation be geographically configured?
• Third, how should radio regulation understand and respect personal freedom?

Most persons understand revolutionary ideas that answer these three questions. The challenge is to recognize this common knowledge and apply it to radio regulation.

Check out an outline of the contents.

Comments

Radio Regulation

[kb3hag]

First, Amature radio bands should be nationaly standardized, trying to talk to a pearson listioning on a frequancy they can't trans on that you can and the other way around is very tiring.

Second, geographical regions with tought terain should be forced to use hf frequancies, 49.999 mhz and below because of it's propagation properties. And local governments should have a say in there frequancy usage, but there must be internatioanl templates for diffrent bands and usage.

Third, radio regulation should be somthing people can vote on. people should be able to have a say in what they can and cannot do with radio bands. there should be an international radio regulation panel that regulates radio usage. atleast that's my thoughts and my 2 cents

radio rights

[coronaride]

This is a very similar argument to all sorts of other issues. In America, it always seems to boil down to either the government regulating it, a private entity regulating it, or a private entity hired by the government to regulate it. Is this the result of our capitalist society? I honestly don't know.

What we need is individual civic entities operating out of goodwill, not money, in order to establish rights and rules for all things, not just airwaves. Of course, no good American will do this, becaus it requires things like 'goodwill' and 'selflessness' and 'working without pay'.

Re:radio rights

[dschuetz]

In America, it always seems to boil down to either the government regulating it, a private entity regulating it, or a private entity hired by the government to regulate it.

Actually, more often than not, it seems to boil down to "let's not let anyone regulate it, and let the consumers make their choice." And as a result, we have crappy airline service, super-expensive cable TV, balkanized cell phone service, and no AM stereo.

This may be a bit of an off-topic, but there's a great article in the latest Consumer Reports that talks about how all kinds of industries (CATV, Long Distance, Airlines, etc.) were ALREADY on a downward cost trend (services going up, costs going down) before government deregulation, and that since deregulation, the trend has either slowed down or reversed (and quality / service gone down).

Since "It'll be cheaper for the consumer!" seems to be the standard battlecry for people advocating deregulation, this was very interesting.

Anyway, I do agree that we need better regulation of certain technological fields -- be it frequency allocation or technology standards (like selecting a single cell phone spec for everyone to use so we're not 20 years behind the Finns). For some reason, though, we as a culture seem to think that's verboten. That it's an affront to the capitalistic ideal. But, in the end, the capitalist system doesn't "select" what's "best" for the consumer, it selects who was "best" at competing.

So, how do we make these decisions, then? I certainly don't want a bunch of bureaucrats deciding the specs for the next ethernet standard, do I? And I don't want industry to do it, either (at least I don't want the entertainment industry to do it). And it's difficult to get too many people together without someone crying "antitrust." Maybe a standardized process of academics and industry proposing and peer reviewing, with government oversight and approval? I dunno.

Either way, it sucks. There's no technical reason (as I've said over and over) why we can't all have fiber to our doorstep with a unified, standard data and hardware spec that enables me to switch, for example, from one CATV provider to another with a simple phone call.

And it's not getting any better, as the different specs for XM and Sirius prove -- I'd be less reluctant to buy into satellite radio if I could switch to the other provider if I don't like their programming.

Okay, I'm done with the tangent.

Re:ICANN for Radio Bands?

[Hard_Code]

On the other hand, interference isn't going to be as likely at a global level than with DNS, so regional instead of global control makes sense. Who cares what somebody on the other side of the globe uses as long as it does not interfere with you.

FCC pays attention

[octalgirl]

This is a pretty indepth report. A lot to go over, and many references. With all of the crap with RIAA, CARP, DMCA, CIPA, etc, I am at least glad that a member of the FCC realizes the communication potential of the internet and all that it has brought to us, and is making an effort to communicate processes or ideas via this site.

Re:Get rid of shitty programming

[homer_ca]

That would be a direct result of Clear Channel buying up so many radio stations nationwide, a process enabled by the 1996 Telecommunications Act lifting previous ownership limits (no more than 40 stations nationwide, no more than 4 in one city). Reinstating those limits would go a long way in righting the wrongs: lack of local content, moronic prerecorded DJs, repetitive playlists.

Don't forget Radio Astronomy

[davecl]

One set of users of radio spectrum who should not be ignored are radio astronomers - in fact it could be argued that they helped to establish global radio communications in the first place, so should get some credit!

Radio astronomy is now restricted to a few small regions of radio spectrum. Many interesting scientific targets cannot be observed because of man made interference (eg. HI emission lines in moderately redshifted galaxies). Even the small scientific reserves that exist are being encroached upon - for example by the Glonas satellites - and are under threat of commercial exploitation.

One thing that a review of radio frequency use should do is to formalise and strengthen the protections of parts of the spectrum for scientific use.

Ayn Rand's Idea: Radio Frequency "Homesteading"

[Nova Express]

Ayn Rand propesed an alternative to federal regulation of the airwaves in (IIRC) Capitalism: The Unknown Idea: radio frequency "homesteading." The basic idea was to let anyone broaedcast anything on any unassigned frequency. The idea was that popular programming would live and thrive on their frequency whereas less popular comptetitors would wither away and die. After a certain amount of time (5 or 10 years), those who had successfully "homesteaded" that frequence would get a recognized "right" to continue using it. An interesting idea, and not all that different from what pirate radio stations are doing today, sans official recognition...

Re:It's a "let's privatize the spectrum" scheme.

[isdnip]

Thank you for being the first commenter who seems to have actually read the paper! I did too, or more precisely skimmed it looking for him to "cut to the chase". He really didn't -- at the beginning, he cited Guatemala's example, and then he rambled on with a PhD-thesis-length collection of stories about radio regulation. Sometimes seeming a bit drunk in the process.

Guatemala's sale of spectrum rights as a kind of real estate is weird, of course, but then Guatemala's version of democracy is little removed from the Spanish Inqisition Empire that spawned it, a few wealthy families almost literally owning everyone else, with the European minority having the nearly untrammeled right to kill the indigenous majority. So sure, the airwaves should be "owned" by the Spaniards, like the land. Hardly an example for the USA.

But then Galbi contradicts this when he talks about software-defined radios. His absynthe kicks in when he complains that FCC regs for SDRs prohibit users from reprogramming them. The whole idea behind SDRs is to allow one set of hardware to run code that adapts to one or another set of rules, each designed to prevent interference. Homegrown unapproved code as Galbi seems to like it would allow anybody to cause any old interference they wanted. He views this as creativity. Sorry, officer, if your police radio broke. Sorry, neighbor, if your cellphone broke. Software "freedom" trumps your rights, according to Galbi.

Contradictions like that are about all I can glean out of an awfully-long read. This is not the first silly paper Galbi has written. He seems terribly hung up on the right wing ideology-du-jour as applied to communications practice. His research is actually pretty good; he just doesn't know how to synthesize cogent, or sane, conclusions.