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 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: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.