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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."
The press release doesn't say that Bush is planning on opening up more spectrum for unlicensed use, at all. In fact, with all the statments saying they want to "foster economic growth", I dare say it sounds like they just might be transfering more spectrum to private corporations, possibly rasing the price significantly in order to "create incentives for more efficient and beneficial use of spectrum".
You have to ask... What's the point of a press release when it's so vague, spewing out the same old "I want to do everything that is good, and nothing that is bad" that they now say pratcially nothing at all?
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Hopefully Bush will give more of the radio spectrum to public use, as it IS the public's country, not ClearChannel's. Yes, some should definately be sold to industry for money, but a good amount should remain deregulated (within reason) for public use.
There's nothing about what the outcome of re-evaluating the spectrum. It makes good sense to do so from time to time.
As an amateur radio hobbyist, though, I am hoping that this re-evaluation doesn't mean that we lose more of our frequencies to industry. We've already lost enough. I note that one of the uses of radio listed is national security. In times of disasters and emergencies, it's quite common for ham operators to assist in providing communications.
On the other hand, evaluating the rules to adapt them for the implementation of new technologies is probably a good thing.
I hope that this evaluation is done sensibly and what's best for consumers and amateur operators is taken into account in addition to what's right for industry and government.
One thing about the rf spectrum - couldn't we give ourselves near-infinite total bandwidth by using directional receiving antennae that can be re-pointed (think eyes for radio) than stupid omnidirectional pickups that mean the rf spectrum is only divisible in one dimension, wavelength/frequency?
Sure, the cost of receivers would increase, but with modern technology, surely the commoditisation of wireless communication would more than make up for it for everyone but the current industry players?
"Sec. 5. Reports. The Secretary of Commerce, or the Secretary's designee, shall present to me, through the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and Director of the National Economic Council and the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs..."
This section would indicate to me that President Bush is out to see what kind of money can be squeezed from the Spectrum. Interesting to me that the first two people to report to him are involved in Economic affairs. Though this may appear to be a squeeze on big business it really would not be. They pass along any rate increases directly to us, at some multiple of their increase in costs.
"The Initiative shall undertake a comprehensive review of spectrum management policies (including any relevant recommendations and findings of the study conducted pursuant to section 214 of the E-Government Act of 2002) with the objective of identifying recommendations for revising policies and procedures to promote more efficient and beneficial use of spectrum without harmful interference to critical incumbent users."
Though the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bandwidth are currently free for public use, the new "recommendations" that this committee is to make could do away with that. What would happen if Microsoft or another large corporation purchsed those chunks of the spectrum at auction? Could we all be forced to pay for licenses just to operate our little Wi-Fi networks?
I don't really know how likely these outcomes are, but when we are talking about big business we should at least consider the possibility that it could occur. It seems to me like we should all be writing to our respective representatives about this issue. Spend a stamp, save a network node.
If Darwin was right, you'd be dead by now.
If they are really interested in openning up the spectrum for more and varied uses, particularly at the low power end of the scale, they would not be talking about spectrum as a "limited" resource. Instead they would be talking more about Open Spectrum and finding more ways for more uses to share spectrum and make it effectively an unlimited resource.
As to being international, don't you think that a lot of value can be had from international coordination of this sort of effort? At the very least, coordination might prevent situations where wireless equipment needs to be customized for each region. Even if this is strictly a configuration issue for flexible hardware, it introduces unnecessary complications and cost.
I was wondering if the FCC has considered opening up a portion of the FM and even AM radio spectrum for use by the public. It seems that radio has a need to have an allocation similar to that of public access on television. I realize that NPR affiliate stations fill part of this niche but really what I'm looking for is something where the programing is by the people for the people. This would be a chance for real community based radio broadcasts.
It seems that the people are in need of a public band on the FM spectrum to use for local & artistic uses. I know a lot of artists and local groups that could benefit from having a radio station run in a similar fashion to public access.
I'm not sure if the solution is one big organized station broadcasting with lots of power over the greater metro areas or instead many tiny low powered broadcasts that are more neighborhood specific. The FCC does have an initiative for a Low Power FM (LPFM) broadcast radio stations which could be used for educational non-commercial use. The range would be about 3 and half miles. Which could be great for neighborhood based programming. Trouble is that this initiative doesn't care if you get overpowered by other broadcasters. There are a lot of rules about getting permits and what your content is going to be though.
I'm not sure if these stations themselves would be managed by the FCC or by local government or by a new non profit that could work with government agencies. Ideally I see the service being run in a co-op style
||| technological transcendentalist |||
I posted part of this here but this thread is much better for my suggestions, and my reaction to the article.
First off, American cell phone providers should be told to fuck off. They should not be included or considered this time around in figuring out what to do to move the spectrum forward in any way, shape, or form. They have their parcel of bandwidth, and I'm not in favor of them getting even more of a chunk until the industry can come up with a national cell standard - one that makes "tri-mode" phones obsolete. They are just wasting space which could be better alotted if they'd just work together for a change.
Next up, we need "3G" radio. Satellite radio isn't local which IMHO is its only drawback. Current regulations and standards for AM/FM could be updated for more efficient use of spectrum. But screw it. Lets just go all out and make an FM2 or something. Yes, I know there is a technology in the works to "digitize" local radio, but they're going about it in a legacy-supporting way. By going about an upgrade in this manner, the FCC is preventing smaller players from going live. UHF is an over-sized playgrond that nobody uses and FM is an overcrowded ClearChannel clusterfuck. The FCC needs to fix it... starting over from scratch. Hell, let ClearChannel keep FM... but give us another way to broadcast and receive local content... digitally. "FM2" should have about 100 low-medium power channels for everyone to use... requiring an FCC permit, but unlike AM/FM, it should have very low or nonexistent broadcaster fees. It should be what LPFM strived to do, only much better.
In that vein of thought, let's go one step further, and give every high school in the nation the option of having one free (no FCC fee) channel of DTV and "FM2."
Thoughts?
A US high-tech community which will not organize effectively to defend its own freedom of speech rights or its right to make a living using technology and can not be convinced to make contributions towards defending its rights to organizations unless there's a tax deduction in it for them is not going to go forth and reclaim the RF spectrum as a public resource.
Tech Public Policy stuff