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Revising Spectrum Rules
Orne writes "Whereas NPR is speculating on the television spectrum, the AP brings us news that the Bush administration is set to re-evaluate government and industry use of the radio spectrum. An executive order kicks off a year of public meetings held by the Commerce Dept; the official press release is here."
i.e. Sell it to the highest bidder.
Is there nothing left that can't be purchased? Bush showed us that friends can be bought (Turkey), elections can be bought (Florida), Justice can be bought (Enron), peace can be bought (Iraq). He'd sell off his dignity if he had any.
> The radio spectrum is a ''vital and limited
> national resource'' needed for economic growth,
> scientific research and homeland security, Bush
> said.
What about the rest of the world? Doesn't it count?
Hmm...
No pr0n. That's what the internet is for. And you'll find more than you have time for there.
I think a better use for it would be a Govt. subsidized, public wireless network that can be used by all. Internet for everyone sounds better than 312 Spice channels. Dontcha think?
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
With the ITU conference on the Radio Spectrum allocation taking place very soon, are announcements like this not "jumping the gun" a little?
I ran this through the anti-spin machine and it spit out "I want to find out who we can bump off their frequency allocations so we can re-assign those frequencies via auction to raise revenues. And for those that can't be moved, I want to figure out how we can tax them."
The government has not done a good job of encouraging free enterprise and entrepreneurial spirit when it comes to RF spectrum. Each and every time they have a spectrum auction, the telcos seem to walk away the winners each and every time regardless of whether or not they actually plan to deploy services on those frequencies.
If Bush is serious about this and it's just not another revenue grab for the government or a gift for big corporations, he's going to have to gut the FCC and give them serious instruction on who really should be the benefactor of any frequency allocations.
If the airwaves really do belong to the public, the government has done an incredibly bad job of stewardship.
Look. I don't want to seem like a troll here, but I think that some of you are going a bit over when saying that like, the only reason that he is re-evaluating the spectrum is because he wants more money.
I recently did an FCC lookup in my town, and the Board of Ed. owns about 8 frequencies. I did some asking around, and someone said that they used to have radios on those frequencies to talk around the campuses (yes, i probably didnt' spell right), but they have replaced those with some FRS radios that are about 10 times better.
Think of all the frequencies that are being used up with things like UHF TV stations (move them all down to the VHF spectrum), and other things. Now, think of how crowded the unlicensed spectrum is (in my house, the wi-fi goes down when someone pick up the cordless phone).
Yes, Bush may get a bit of money, but wouldn't you want to have all of that nice, juicy bandwidth covering your area?
Wow you're pessimistic. Perhaps you're right. But to me, at least someone is looking at it. Someone is paying attention to the idea that spectrum use isn't as "good" as it could be.
I don't pretend to know a lot about it, but I do know I hear a lot of complaining, particularly around here. So why not take advantage of the fact that they're going to spend a year studying the "issue" and speak up? Try something positive.
This is a carrot to put in front of broadcasters during the year leading
up to the election to make sure they stay on their best behavior, and on
message, in exchange for (possible favorable) consideration when the
new pie is sliced up after the election. It also makes sure that instead of
having the many companies save up cash for spectrum auctions, that
they (and the employees that want to keep their jobs) instead make
a generous contribution to the party of their choice.
This administration never takes any action on behalf of "The People".
Especially in this coming year, the only focus is to stay in power.
Anything else is a waste of time for the BuSh administration.
1. Lobby the Bushies to shrink spectrum allocated to military services - seriously degrading all legacy infrastructure
2. Sell the Services new digital kit that can provide the old level of utility in the new smaller ranges
3. Profit!
A problem being that there will be a hell of a lot of lag time between 1 and 2, so the uniformed folks are screwed.
Half a million letters were written to the FCC, discouraging the move towards media consolidation. Now the big media companies are shaking their champagne bottles and spraying it all over each other.
If you think ideas like public, Open Spectrum have any chance of becoming reality under Bush, then all I have to say is "Wow you're naive".
I would like to see more spectrum go to non-profits and see new licenses for small community broadcasters. I guess I better start writing letters, because I don't think The Shrub is going to do it without being agitated a bit.
It Interesting and distressing seeing people essentially sitting down and complaining that the "fix is in", "that we already know what will happen" with respect to this opportunity. Yes, that is right. This is a great opportunity. An opportunity to get in front of the FCC and make the case for modifying the rules to create an open commons for spectrum use. To create rules that will allow it to be open to expermentation as long as your experiment doesn't interfere with someone else's experiment (great place to use Justine Brandises' quote, "Your freedom ends where my nose begins", in a brief). To create a business model based on rental fees in relationship to revenues vs. one time licensing fees at auction, in order to create a playing field that will allow small businesses to get into the game as well.
So, how do we change the game? Well, first - to paraphrase Woody Allen - we will have to show up. This means that we will have to write position papers, showing at hearings, present a compelling case and work to get people behind it. We can't just sit back and bitch and moan about how the deck is stacked against us. We will actually have to get engaged in the political and rule making process. We will have to educate politicans and bureaucrats alike. We will have to frame our discussions not just in terms of geek-speak and the coolness of the technology, but also in terms that will make sense to them. We have to show them how they win in terms of their agendas, when they embrace our agendas.
What would be the first step? Well, we need a nationally known spokesperson. Someone of the caliber of Lawrence Lessig to lead the charge. And then we need a technology leader. Someone that people in the rest-of-the-world instantly recognize as a technology leader. Someone like Andy Grove, Bills Gates, or Steve Jobs. Yes, this combination makes for strange bed-fellows. Next, we will need a position paper. A position paper that lays out the economic and technologic case for following our roadmap. And then we need to get airplay for it. We need to get the NY Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, etc. writing about this, taking this up as a cause. And we need to get it in front of the hearings. We need articulate, well-presented, spokespeople that will get it presented at each and every hearing. And finally, we need thousands of people, with individuals in each and every state and congressional district that will write well put together letters (via snail mail and email) summarizing the case in their own words and sending our position people onto their Senators and Congresspeople.
A lot of work? Yes, it is. But do you expect hacking our society to be any easier than hacking code? Can we build a collaborative development model to hack society to what we believe is the right outcome? I think we can, but it won't be easy. Are you willing to participate. To paraphase the quote, the only thing required for the corporations and monied interests to trimuph is for men and woman of good well to sit around and complain about how the fix is in.
I love when Bush uses the military for photo ops and then screws them on benefits and crap like this.
Last night I wrote in the thread about over-the-air broadcasting how the gubmint should start re-farming part of the military aircraft band to other spectrum requirements. In retrospect, that post would have been more apropriately made here.
In a nutshell, that band is massive -- 175 MHz, or the width of 29 TV channels. Back "in the day" when encrytion was relatively primitive the need for so many frequencies was greater so users could "hide through obscurity" This is no longer needed, and a significantly smaller mil-air band would more than suffice given current DES-encrypted digital-spread-spectrum transmissions that are ultra-efficient in bandwidth requirements.
So it's much safer to re-farm let's say 2/3 of that chunk to other needs (give most to land mobile -- it's in a frequency range that's ultra-usable for them) and move cell and data around up above 800-900, etc. Everybody wins. Heck, I'd dearly love to see another amateur band in this region or an expansion of the 420-450 band.
To reply directly to your post, however, it's NOT screwing the military, despite their protests. They have the technology to use existing spectrum efficiently and securely. Spectrum efficiency is very much what's needed. Land Mobile is currently under orders to decrease bandwidth significantly in coming years and I don't see why other spectrum users can't be made to follow the same path. With effecient use, more users can have access to the same pie.
As to who gets what, well, that's a differnt story and one for another day and another thread!
The military and other government users are (naturally) concerned about security of communications. Current levels of data and voice encryption in fact allow for strategic security as well as tactical. The days of needing to hide through obscurity are gone.
I suspect this is more a case of a few spectrum-hungry technocrats not wanting to give up or share their exclusive-use and rather massive RF playground.
Cheers, Peter, W2IRT
The radio spectrum is a ''vital and limited national resource'' needed for economic growth, scientific research and homeland security, Bush said.
And that is the problem - right there. It is not a limited natural resource, it is limited by nothing in physics - only by the devices we've currently locked ourselves into using because the FCC tried to "allocate" frequencies to begin with. If we shut down the FCC and respect that people should have unrestricted use of airwaves, then these "limited" problems will magically start to go away, and so will the poor technology that we've all been locked into using.