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."

Comments

There goes Wi-Fi

[spector30]

"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.