Shirky on Spectrum Ownership

scubacuda writes "When engineering assumptions change, shouldn't the laws that govern technology reflect those changing assumptions? Perhaps Clay Shirky puts it best: 'Things like shoes, cars, and houses are all property. Property is excludable -- it is easy to prevent others from using it -- and rival -- meaning that one person's use of it will interfere with another person's use of it. Spectrum has neither characteristic. Spectrum is purely descriptive -- a frequency is just a particular number of waves a second -- so no one can own a particular frequency of spectrum in the same way no one can own a particular color of light. Instead, when an organization 'owns' spectrum, what they really have is a contract guaranteeing Federal prosecution if someone else broadcasts on their frequency in their area. The regulatory costs of forcing spectrum to emulate property are enormous, but worthwhile so long as it leads to better use of spectrum than other methods can. That used to be true. No longer.'"

Comments

keep it pithy

[Swamii]

Number of slashdotters that took the time to read that long headline on a lazy saturday afternoon: 0

spectrum

[aftk2]

meaning that one person's use of it will interfere with another person's use of it.

Doesn't this happen, though? People complain a lot about their microwaves and cordless phones screwing up their WIFI, for example. Or am I missing something?

Re:spectrum

[mechsoph]

Wifi and cordless phones actually run on an unregulated part of the spectrum. No FCC to keep you from using it. No FCC to stop other people from mucking it up.

Re:spectrum

[dougmc]

It's not licensed, but it is regulated.

For example, when you use these bits of spectrum, you have serious power limits -- generally less than one watt. Which is probably the only reason they're useful at all, because if it wasn't for this, you'd have people with 1 kW WiFi amplifiers :)

(Note that the ham bands do overlap with the 2.4 gHz region, so by going under the ham rules, a ham operator CAN use a lot more power in that section. But most hams are quite considerate about not interfering with other people, even when they don't legally have to be. For the record, I'm AD5RH, but I've not tried any 2.4 gHz ham stuff. Yet.)

As for the microwave, there's a tiny bit of spectrum allocated for things like this, with few restrictions beyond 1) not emitting so much RF to be dangerous and 2) not emitting RF outside this band beyond a certain small amount. It's meant for `trash' signals, like that emitted by microwave ovens and some medical equipment. In theory, your microwave's signal should stay within the spectrum allocated to it, but the rules do allow it to radiate outside it a little bit, and that's probably what you see. Also, a strong signal (especially on a nearby frequency will `desense' a receiver), reducing it's sensitivity -- you might be seeing that too, even if the microwave is staying perfectly within it's little chunk of bandwidth.

Spectrum is excludable and rival

[The Infamous Grimace]

'Things like shoes, cars, and houses are all property. Property is excludable -- it is easy to prevent others from using it -- and rival -- meaning that one person's use of it will interfere with another person's use of it. Spectrum has neither characteristic.

Wrong, at least in part. If I broadcast on a spectrum being used by another, it can interfere. And by interfering, I can exclude others from using it.
However, this may be purely semantics on my part, since one depends on the other.

(tig)

Re:Spectrum is excludable and rival

[calidoscope]

If I broadcast on a spectrum being used by another, it can interfere. And by interfering, I can exclude others from using it.

That's the reason for regulation of the radio spectrum. (Score:5 insightful)

A critical point that Shirky and countless others fail's to graps is that the reasons unlicensed spectrum works are:
1) The frequency band in use does not support long distance propagation (i.e. ionspheric reflection) - hence interference is a local problem.
2) The FCC and equivalent regulatory bodies limit the transmit power (and often effective radiated power).

There is a simple method for minimizing interference - use directional antennas with the narrowest possible beamwidth (some of this can be done electronically) for both transmit and receive - and lowest power needed for communication. Unfortunately, most wi-fi users use omnidirectional antennas.

I've also had w-a-y too much experience with interference with poorly designed consumer electronics and similar problems to think that the FCC and related organizations are obsolete. Sure, the state of the art equipment is less susceptible than previous generations of equipment, but I strongly doubt that the typical consumer will anything close to state of the art. To prove my point on the latter - look at all of the problems on the internet due to viruses, worms and the ilk that propagate through Winoze boxes...

No More ugly colors

[ASayre8]

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/08/14/203723 7

Same story, better colors.

The Orange is Mine

[trifakir]

...no one can own a particular frequency of spectrum in the same way no one can own a particular color of light...

Wrong. At least some big corporations would disagree with this statement. As a matter of fact we (figuratively) pay taxes to educate business people who dispute who actually owns a color...

Re:The Orange is Mine

[Anubis350]

believe it or not, I actually RTFA that you linked to...

the issue under discussion there isnt really can one own a color, the article is misleading in that respect.

the issue in that case is that the company Orange is claiming that "its rival having a similar logo to its own will cause confusion among its customers and damage its business.". This is a very different claim from saying it owns the color orange. The issue that easyMobile and Orange are fighting over is no different from any other case involving simillar names,logos,etc between rival companies.

Neither company is claiming to own orange (the color), they are arguing over whether easyMobile's symbols are close enough to that of Orange's to make it confusing and misleading to the customer. This includes the use of the color orange In this context.

--Aaron

Ownership of Light

[FFFish]

no one can own a particular frequency of spectrum in the same way no one can own a particular color of light

You can "own" colors, no problem.

See this short article explaining how the courts have favoured/denied color trademarking.

I believe Coke owns their colour of red, IBM blue, KPN (Dutch Telco) green, etc.

As long as the color is not indicative of "function" (ie. isn't associated with a particular "message", ie. blue is cold, red is hot, green is environmental, etc), you have a shot at getting it trademarked.

When trademarked, competitors in your marketspace/mindshare can't use that same colour.

Which means you effectively "own" the wavelength of light that is that colour!

Re:Ownership of Light

[Chmarr]

FFFish overcomplicated the matter by using the word 'wavelengths'. Trademarking colours has nothing to do with wavelengths of light.

Remember... there are an infinite number of ways of representing yellow. One way is to have a pure yellow light source. The other way is to have one red light source, one green, that excite the red and green receptors in our eyes with the same ratio that the yellow light source does.

Thus, a COLOUR is trademarked, not an arrangement of wavelengths of light.

(Yes, this means that someone who is tetrachromatic will be able to see more colours, since they have 4 distinguishing wavelength receptors rather than the standard 3, and thus will have lengthy arguments about whether or not two particular samples have the same colour)

sad, sad times

[Anonymous Coward]

when the awful green the better choice...

Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing

[div_2n]

When many radios in close proximity broadcast on the same frequency, the resulting noise interferes with the operation of the radios especially in data and voice applications. All the smarts you put behind a device can't solve that. It is a matter of physics and physics will always get the final say.

Now there does exist quite a bit of licensed spectrum in the lower bands that isn't being used everywhere, but it is in some places. Exactly how to utilize those in some places and not others in an open market is a tough question.

No longer?

[fenodyree]

Spectrum is treated as property and defended by law for the same reason your house is, without that law a much larger person/gov't/company would take over your home or squat on your frequency. Without local cooperation such as the FCC, cell phone companies would try to use the same frequency or jam the other guys, public bands for FRS radios would be occupied by other traffic. Local organizations, ie, FCC allow for global cooperation. Have you ever tried to use an FRS radio in Africa where spectrum rights are often undefended? Sometimes the radios work without interference, sometimes not.

Property

[Jan-Pascal]

This discussion about spectrum as property, and the whole lot about the several kinds of intellectual property, really reminds me of what I just read in Paul Johnson's "History of the American People" about the debate in the early 19th century about "natural property" (shoes, rice, land, houses) vs "artificial property" (money, stock, loans, corporations) and whether the US Constitution should offer the same kind of protection to this "artificial" property as it does for natural property. In hindsight, it is obvious that these should be protected just as physical property, to foster economic activity and capitalism.

As many /. readers, I'm inclined to emphasize the differences between old-style property (to us) and copyright, patents, and trademark just the way many people around 1800 emphasized the differences between natural and artificial property. but it makes me wonder, are we the dinosaurs here, instead of the RIAA, FCC et al. ?

PS - just for the record, I'm not American, I'm Dutch.

Re:Property

[Paul Fernhout]

In hindsight, it is obvious that these [money, stock, loans, corporations] should be protected just as physical property, to foster economic activity and capitalism.

Why is that "obvious"? Capitalism as an ideology has been widely discredited worldwide (although the media doesn't reflect that) through its end results in practice (colonialism and its aftermath, slavery and its aftermath, increasing rich/poor divide, pollution, inappropriate technological solutions, human suffering, mindless work) as opposed to claims in theory, see for example: Millionaire Wannabes. If Capitalism worked, we'd all be using Smalltalk or Lisp (developed thirty years ago) instead of Java and XML.

Money (in terms of Federal Reserve Notes) and loans (in terms of usury with interest and a fractional reserve banking system) are also equally problematical. In fact, the American Revolution was fought mainly over the right for the colonies to print their own paper money (a fact long forgotten or suppressed). See: The World's Alternative Trading Network for some more details. Or google on "Fractional Reserve". Alan Greenspan isn't busy setting interest rates to help everyone out -- he is trying to be an optimum parasite to get the most blood out of everyone he can by balancing drawing blood (interest) against how big the economy is.

Corporations? They are the biggest marauders around in many ways. Why should they have more than human rights in the USA? Effectively their charters are no longer revoked and if they commit a crime they just get fined and maybe some employees (disposable cells, like your skin cells) go to prison, while nothing about the corporation really changes. Why should investors have limited liability? If people support a bad cause, shouldn't they too go to jail? It is happening now with people who supposedly support "terrorism", so why should corporate investors get a free pass when they support pollution, habitat destruction, sweatshop practices, employee boredom, and so on?

In fact, the whole notion of "Work" underlying all that stuff is itself bogus. For alternatives to capitalism, consider: Buddhist Economics or: The End of Work. From that last: "Curiously --- maybe not --- all the old ideologies are conservative because they believe in work. Some of them, like Marxism and most brands of anarchism, believe in work all the more fiercely because they believe in so little else. Liberals say we should end employment discrimination. I say we should end employment. Conservatives support right-to-work laws. Following Karl Marx's wayward son-in-law Paul Lafargue I support the right to be lazy. Leftists favor full employment. Like the surrealists--except that I'm not kidding--I favor full unemployment. Trotskyists agitate for permanent revolution. I agitate for permanent revelry. But if all the ideologues (as they do) advocate work--and not only because they plan to make other people do theirs--they are strangely reluctant to say so. They will carry on endlessly about wages, hours, working conditions, exploitation, productivity, profitability. They'll gladly talk about anything but work itself. These experts who offer to do our thinking for us rarely share their conclusions about work, for all its saliency in the lives of all of us. Among themselves they quibble over the details. Unions and management agree that we ought to sell the time of our lives in exchange for survival, although they haggle over the price. Marxists think we should be bossed by bureaucrats. Libertarians think we should be bossed by businessmen. Feminists don't care which form bossing takes so long as the bosses are women. Clearly these ideology-mongers have serious differences over how to divvy up the spoils of power. Just as clearly, none of them have any objection to power as such and

Re:Property

[tylernt]

(Incidentally, that was one of the most interesting posts I've read on Slashdot.)

Part of the problem is that thanks to the Cold War, most Americas think that capitalism is the One True Way... Our Way Or The Highway... We Are Right So Everyone Else Is Wrong. In reality, capitalism is most certainly NOT the most efficient economical model! And, anybody who says so (like I just did) tends to be labeled "unamerican" or "communist". I'm NOT advocating Communism, I think that sucks too. But I think that our current mindset and body of laws are tailored to 'economics of scarcity' and are poorly equipped to deal with economics of abundance, such as software and music that can be copied endlessly without appreciable "real costs". The fact that we are having so many problems with patents, copyrights, the RIAA, MPAA, etc tells me that our current system needs reworking.

Our problem is not necessarily the laws; they are merely a symtom of the disease. The real problem is economics and the centuries of traditions that are now outmoded and obsolete.

Smoked what now?

[nsample]

Property is excludable -- it is easy to prevent others from using it -- and rival -- meaning that one person's use of it will interfere with another person's use of it. Spectrum has neither characteristic.

I'm a big fan of Clay, but what precisely was he smokign when he wrote this? Spectrum is both excludable and rival. Exclusion, as applied to spectrum, can be equivocated with "jamming." Rival is known simply as "interference."

Perhaps his argument is that over range both characteristics (excludability and rivalry) of spectrum diminish, unlike with physical property. But spectrum is absolutely property, by both definitions.

Should spectrum be free? Don't know. Don't care. But let's not jumpstart the debate by twisting core characteristics of property.

Spectrum as Property (or not)

[Landaras]

I posted this in the last spectrum topic, but it's perhaps even more applicable to this discussion.

- Neil Wehneman

*****

Lawrence Lessig spends a not insignificant amount of time on the concept of spectrum in 2001's The Future of Ideas.

Quoting him from page 233 (emphasis in original)...

"Here again, an idea about property is doing all the work - but this time the idea is at its most attenuated. We don't yet have a full property regime for allocating and controlling spectrum. Yet we are still being driven to embrace this single view. We are racing to deny the opportunity for balance, pushed (as we always are) by those who have the least to gain from a world of balance. The possibility of a commons at the physical layer is ignored; even the chance to experiment with the commons is denied. Instead, policy makers on the Right and the Left race to embrace a system of perfect control.

So strong is this idea of property, so unbalanced is our understanding of its tradition, that we embrace it fully, without limitation, even when it doesn't yet exist, and even when the asset being assigned a property right is not - like the wires of AT&T's cable or the creative genius behind Disney's Mickey Mouse - something anyone has created. We are racing to assign property rights in the air, because we can't imagine that balance could do better."

Buy it new, buy it used, or get it from the library. But if you have interest in spectrum you should definitely read this book.

Here's Why

[vettemph]

If the Gov. allowed us to share an area of the spectrum with our friends and neighbors say for up to ten miles is all directions, using Wireless links, (Think old CB technology but no interference now that we know how to Multiplex on Spread spectrum); this could be linked in a way simular to the internet. The main exception to the simularity is that you would not be dependent on your local copper wire monopoly. This would allow you to communicate without using one of the big controllers of communication. All things must go up to them before they can come back down at their destination. This is a policy which you are not allowed to violate. All your communication MUST be monitored via a central control. Everything usefull must have a toll bridge. If they can't erect a physical toll bridge they will erect a legal toll bridge. Those who have invested in the copper and cell based networks will always lobby (pay people off) to keep you on your leesh. Wireless is only allowed to be usefull for connecting you to central control(an ISP or letting you connect your home PC's together along with central control). Of course they will never explain it to you this way, It's a secret.

PS- Stop trying to think for yourself.

any color you like

[Doc Ruby]

Shirky is unusually accurate in this screed about technology undermining the fundamental mission of the FCC: a central registry of spectral band users to prevent interference in radiated signals. The FCC was established to create, sell, and protect "necessary" monopolies on spectral bands handed to favored broadcasting corporations. But Clay's imprecise, as he misses the biggest threat to the spectrum registrar: phased array antenna technology.

Traditional antennae are "1 dimensional" in their tuned band: a signal is either present or not (to a degree, in an amplitude of power) at any given moment. So the world looks either like a wash of, say, "green", or is completely dark - no edges or other features, which appear only in dimensions. A phased array is like a video sensor area- as signals of a tuned color arrive from a single origin in space, at slightly different times to slightly different points in the array, the same color can be sensed as emanating from different "spots". Human eyes use lenses to assign different arrival times/points to different retinal detector cells, while phased array antennae can use use the actual timing differences.

These new arrays allow a single color to be used by different transmitters, separated by the exclusive positions we're familiar withj in our daily lives: each thing is in only one place at a time. So phased array antennae are even more sophisticated than spread spectrum codecs, or the FCC: using the properties of space and light, there's no need to "register" or negotiate colors. Each color can be used by anyone, so long as their position is exclusive of everyone else. As that condition comes free with physical existence, we're freed from the limits of one-dimensional, low-fidelity sensors, and archaic monopoly administrators like the FCC, as well.

Re:any color you like

[Doc Ruby]

You asked "how phased arrays are fundamentally different from other directional antennas, such as parabolic dishes"? And I answered. Now, a phased array of parabolic dishes is obviously no different from a phased array, except you're specifying the unit antenna technology. A so-called "phased array" need not be made of parabolic units. And the dedicated "phased array" antennae that I'm talking about have specific features that optimize them for use in spatial differentiation of similar signals. Their compaction (eg. LSI) and integrated amplifiers, as well as other inline analog and digital circuits for filtering and differentiation within the array itself, are exactly the point.

It's like asking "what's the difference between a metal rod and a VHF mast"? For all but trolling purposes, the difference is that a VHF mast is a special metal rod, more practically useable for tuning VHF signals than any old metal rod. It's useful for DIY to understand that this gear isn't magic, and basically pretty simple. It's also useful for fellow DIY'ers to cooperate for better results, rather than picking semantic fights.

Re:FCC ?

[calidoscope]

Oh, and the reason for 2.4 GHz being usable frequency world wide: it happens to be water absorption frequency (which happens to be the technical detail in microwave ovens), hence it being unusable for traditional frequency owners.

BZZZZT!! The water absorption frequency is up around 21 GHz and the liquid absorption line is REALLY broad. I have seen a large industrial "microwave oven" running at 916 MHz - so there is nothing magical about 2.4 GHz.

The reason that 2.4 GHz is widely used is that most countries have agreed on the use for ISM (Industrial, Scientific, Medical). Other users of the frequency must tolerate interference from these sources, which makes it undesirable for licensed services.

Are regulatory costs really "enormous"?

[PapayaSF]

The regulatory costs of forcing spectrum to emulate property are enormous

I'm not a fan of regulation, and the article makes good points, and it's true that the budget of the FCC is about $280 million/year. However, compared to the total annual income of the radio, television, and other industries that use spectrum, is the FCC's budget really that large a percentage?

Re:All property is theft

[bladernr]

Fascists would rather regulate the thing to control the masses that they fear will

Amen. When will liberals stop trying to put regulations on everything. After all, we need our liberty. If I want to have my factory outputting mercury into a river upstream of a city, why should there be environment regulations to stop me? I think I'll pay my works 0.05/hour and never install safety systems. I just need to stop those regulations from the Department of Labor.

I agree on property rights too. What is it with all these parks? Why can't I just bring in my dump trucks and big up coal and shoot spotted owls? What do you mean the government or some individual OWNS it. I should have the liberty to use that property as I see fit.

After all, people's lives, freedoms, and families are much safe under communist systems that capitalist systems. We have history as our example. Freedom of speech is much better protected in North Korea and the USSR than in the UK and the USA. Surely there are fewer political prisoners in China than France and Germany.

But, then again, maybe I don't understand...

2.4ghz isn't exactly unrestricted

[mo]

When getting into philosophical discussions on spectrum economics, some people like to point at 2.4ghz as evidence that the FCC should step off and let anarchy rule.

However keep in mind that just because 2.4ghz is unlicensed, it is not unrestricted. If I went on the balcony of my downtown condo and put a 500dBm wifi AP with a 10dbi omni antenna, it would wreak havoc (and get me in trouble with the fcc).

For another example, imagine unlicensed wireless internet over AM radio spectrum. Yeah you could surf the web from 10 miles away from your house, but your signal would be destroyed from interference from everybody else's.

Now, I'm all for opening up as much spectrum as makes sense provided that the wavelenth is short enough to not blow through buildings etc, and provided the FCC restricts transmission strengths enough to not create anarchy.

Re:How does frequency really work? (phycics questi

[Forbman]

Uh.... they already do this.

When things were analog, it was simply a matter of pumping out enough noise or frequency-matched garble to confuse radar sets and other RF-based equipment.

HARM missiles home in on frequencies *and* location (obviously), and will fly to last-received location, in case a clever radar/radio operator figures he's about ready to be bombed and scoots out of the area, well, the antenna set is likely to get hit.

With digital radio sets, the goal is to try and pump out enough broadband noise to try and override the actual information content.

Which is what makes frequency-hopping slightly better: it's hard to pump out CW noise efficiently (what does a Tesla Coil or arc welder in operation do to SINCGARS?)

Actually, the energy of a photon matters only with its wavelength. Read up on Einstein's photoelectric theory again. You confuse particle energy with intensity. In electricity, 4000 volts, but 1 milliamp, seems like a lot when you're getting EMG (yes, it hurts), but so would getting hit by crossing a 12-V car battery (that pumps 700 amps through you...) with your tongue.

Out of curiosity, I once licked my fingers and shorted out a 68-volt lantern battery with them...

A stream of water, under sufficiently high pressure and sufficiently small enough in diameter, can cut steel plate, even though the same volume of water per second might be less than from your garden hose.

But then throw in frequency-domain analysis. What is the frequency map (i.e., Fourier integral) of a true square wave? Hint: A radio engineer would call them "side bands". What is the frequency spectrum of a frequency-modulated signal? etc etc etc. With the square wave, a signal with side bands that overlapped yours would definitely cause interference to your signal.