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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 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?
"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.
They already have that. It's called Fox News.
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