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UK to Privatize Radio Spectrum?
judgecorp writes "The UK regulator, Ofcom, has decided that managing spectrum is a drag, and there are other people around that might do a better job. It is going to open up 73 percent of the radio spectrum to market forces, and make it technology-neutral and tradeable. So if one technology gets superseded, another one can get rolled out instead (subject to broadcast power limits) without Ofcom having to define what spectrum it should use. Radio was first regulated here 100 years ago this year, and a new regime is needed to fit new radio technology. Ofcom is quite proud to be ahead of the US on this one, because we have a recent Communications Act, and the FCC is 'hamstrung' by old laws - at least that's what the head of research at Ofcom said."
because privatising british rail and british telecom went so well.
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Taming the radio frontier, I like it.
All you have to do is look at the railways, power, mines, buses...
technology consortiums will buy spectrum for their technology
and when the technology grows old and die
what corporate shareholder would sever the last limb propping up a technology?
This is a good idea, as long as there will be a natural resource tax to reduce hoarding and speculation.
Just remember everyone, just because you *can* make money off it means you *should*, right?
What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
*tsk*
I hope they make provision for the amateur bands and we (radio enthusiasts) don't have to club together to buy them. I wonder if licenses will be required still?
Latest news:
At least seven ham radio operators have died, and over 70 CB operators injured during a routine QSO on 10m between London and Kings Lynn. It is reported that one of the side band of the AM transmission derailled off the airwave and careened into the 11m band, injuring many CB operators. The hams QSOing on 10m were found dead, but one of them managed to write "WHERE IS THIS COUNTRY GOING TO? ARRRRGGHHH I DIE...." with his own blood on his contact map.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
no
It's about time someone did this. There's no reason for the airwaves to be publicly owned. "Public ownership" of a resource means that all decisions about a resouce have to occur in the context of politics. All decisions are political decisions.
If the group that wants censorship has more votes than the group that doesn't want censorship, then there'll be censorship.
When a private entity owns something, decisions are made based on the ideals of the private entity. If you don't like the decisions made about the resource, you can buy your own.
It works for land. It'll work for the airwaves. Nice job UK.
BT is going to sue Google because it links to documents about frequencies they own and ways to degrade those frequencies!
News Reporters Make Tasty Polar Bear Treats!
Or can I buy up 2.4ghz and be a total bastard by making everyone else turn their transmitter off?
This would be great news as the guy next door is cutting down on my range and THE GOIT MUST BE STOPPED! I MUST BE ABLE TO SURF THE WEB FOR FREE AT THE PUB! THE WORLD WILL BE MINE! *foam frothes from mouth*
Beep beep.
I'm sure Clear Channel would make a great replacement for the FCC.
But seriously - how do you create a fair competitive market environment for all while treading the line between fascist govt control and private industry monopolization. As much as our politico's thump the podium about 'free markets' they simply allow single entities to get away with abuse of an advantage to corner entire winner-take-all markets that's anything but free.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
The undead Thatcher moves again, strinking out with lines of great opportunities for corruption and hate. Oh yes, the poll tax, and now the spectrum wholesaling. What will happen to ham radio? what will happen to public broadcasting? what will happen to unlicensed spectrum?
Is it really going to be private? or are we still going to be paying the same in tax? (except just giving it to another company)
Want an iPod for free? Click the my homepage link
Well, it depends on if you were writing the article as a Brit or as an American. Privitize is the preferred spelling in the US, Privatise is the preffered spelling in the UK. Either way it is a petty thing to quibble about.
It is petty. z is wrong.
In ontinued government regulation is absolutely intrinsic in any plan to grant "owners" exclusive usage rights to their "property". At whose expense? Well, any non-commercial, public use of radio spectrum that might not be able to afford to participate in your Communications Ministry's fundraising program.
Incidentally, the UK is in no way "ahead of the curve" relative to the US FCC in this regard. The FCC has been auctioning off massive amounts of spectrum to the highest bidder for at least the last ten years, especially to cell phone companies, although there are some mode restrictions attached to the licenses.
"(Man) tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story. But you have to choose: live or tell." --Sartre
I think we have to applaud them on this move. The current regulations and allotments of the FCC are severely holding back wireless technology in the US. If only a few antiquated technologies were put out to pasture we could have high-speed wireless connections that weren't line-of-site and whose ranges weren't severely hampered. Not to mention a slew of other ideas that can't make it off the ground because existing (mis)uses of spectrum don't allow enough bandwidth for innovation.
By the way, the existing telephone and media companies love the fact that this situation is hampering new innovations. Only time will tell if the UK's decision is a step in the right direction, but at least it's a step.
I wonder what it mean to the open spectrum movement. http://www.greaterdemocracy.org/OpenSpectrumFAQ.ht ml
Argh, and there is a Preview button for a reason. What a thread to put a post with multiple mispellings. Privitize -> Privatize, preffered -> preferred. Time to head home.
They should do like they did with Television tax and start taxing people for the amount of radios and other RF based devices they own! They could make a bundle! Also I believe they should up the tax on petrol you British folks pay as well because 75% of the price being tax is just not expensive enough lol...
News Reporters Make Tasty Polar Bear Treats!
Jim74.. You're very new here aren't you?
...oh and for your future ref - there is no such thing as 'petty' on slashdot.
I was just having a laff. Nothing in the UK would ever be 'privatized'. It would be privatised.
The answer is "that depends". There's an excellent Wikipedia entry on this subject here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_ English_differences
"... -ise / -ize
Commonwealth colonise, harmonise, realise; American colonize, harmonize, realize (and derivatives and inflexions therefrom: colonisation - colonization). Although the most authoritative British sources, the Oxford English Dictionary and Fowler's Modern English Usage, prefer -ize, British editors tend to enforce the use of -ise as the standard orthographical practice.
Endings in -yze are possible only in American English. Thus, Commonwealth analyse, catalyse, hydrolyse, paralyse; American analyze, catalyze, hydrolyze, paralyze.
Mind that not all spellings are interchangeable; some verbs take the -z- form exclusively, for instance capsize, seize (except in the legal phrase to be seised of/to stand seised to), size and prize (to value: but prize "to lever open" is in the Commonwealth often prise), whereas others take only -s-: advertise, advise, apprise, arise, chastise, circumcise, comprise, compromise, demise, despise, devise, disguise, excise, exercise, (en)franchise, improvise, incise, merchandise, premise, promise, previse, poise, praise, raise, reprise, revise, rise, supervise, surmise, surprise, televise and uprise."
You'll note that they say that most British editors prefer -ise, while the Oxford English Dictionary prefers -ize. So, in short, us Brits are mighty conflicted about this.
John.
I wonder if this will end up like IP blocks where some behemoths buy up huge blocks but only use a fraction. I suspect the companies that buy up all the spectrum will rule over it like a third world dictator.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
From Merriam-Webster: Privatize in the US http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Diction ary&va=privatize&x=0&y=0
Privatise in the UK:
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Diction ary&va=privatise&x=19&y=17
(Merriam-Webster does not even put the definition under Privatise, only states that is the British variant and provides a link to Privatize.)
In this order...
Ham radio
Community radio stations
BBC local stations
Ad-free radio
BBC national stations
Leaving -
ClearChannel
Pirate radio
I can't wait
--- Yx3 = Delilah ---
see. html
http://home.online.no/~shughes/a57998/izeise
Yes, but I have a lower slashdot ID. Ergo I win.
I guess the thing to do "across the pond" is to back up all your harebrained political ideas with "the US can't do this!"
"Let's privatize radio because the US can't because the FCC doesn't have the authority! yuk yuk yuk!"
It's their version of "we're doing this to fight terrorists".
Simple minded people are so easily led around by hype.
I'm sure your privatized radio system will be a beacon of truth, democracy, and "raping citizenry up the ass while reaching into their pocket and take money straight out of their wallets".
Me, I like not having to pay for radio, and I like having access to the various stations and I sure as hell hope the FCC doesn't decide to sell it off and start a clusterfuck like with DTV.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
just make insurance impossible to to afford and inconvient to use
:)
and cram standardized testing materials down students' throats, in fact why not just test all the time?
...the Environment Agency has announced plans to privatise the air, opening as much as 73 percent of it to market forces to determine how to distribute it throughout the UK, and what it should be used for.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
If you buy it and don't use it, it's like buying an expensive piece of real estate and not building anything there.
Speculators and developers do that all the time. Or is the UK different?
I am quite certain that the government will forgo making some money auctioning off radio spectrum to help a small and politically insignificant group.
Politically insignificant my ass (or arse if you prefer). At least in the United States, the emergency cleanup efforts after the 11 September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center relied on the U.S. amateur radio network, and British hams could use the threat of further terrorism on British soil as a bargaining chip to keep their access to spectrum.
How much does it cost to buy "RED" (a band around 630nm wavelength)? I want to rent the "X" in the Union Jack to the Queen.
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make install -not war
Just like, in your family, you can't run in the kitchen, grab the fridge and claim it's yours
But I can own a dorm size fridge and put it in my bedroom.
They should let Enron run the spectrum marketplace. They're so efficient, smart and honest, and Enron needs a new mission, what with that Iraq pacification taking so long.
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make install -not war
I'm sure Clear Channel would make a great replacement for the FCC.
Well it already has replaced the FCC, or at least its lackeys have, bought and paid for by Clearchannel.
Now, it would be rather different if there is an _auction_ of the spectrum. The other issue is how long the licenses last(I favor shorter term licenses)-and what is done with the revenue from the auction. I personally think part of the revenue from the auction of spectrum should be used to reward the inventors that make spectrum more useful-and the rest should help lower the worst taxes.
The last thing we need is another boondoggle to make the rich richer.
.. i'm buying spare HF transceivers and high-power amplifiers now! :-)
p.s. the British may *think* they can privatize 73 percent of the radio spectrum, but it ain't gonna happen for a number of reasons - WRC anyone?
There are two reasons that I can think of that someone would buy up a natural resource (like land or spectrum) and not use it to its full potential (as opposed to merely "not actually using it"). Both are mentioned in my original post.
A real estate speculator (to use your example) might buy land only to sell when he thinks it will be more valuable, without trying to improve it or make productive use out of it.
Hoarding can make a resource more valuable by creating scarcity. It can also make poor use of a resource more profitable by eliminating competition.
There's also an ethical question about natural resources not subject to taxes. Theoretically, future members of a society with full property rights and no taxes could legally be excluded from owning anything, and used as de facto slaves.
I think you were correct the first time. Most Americans probably do spell it "privitize".
Look everybody, John Hancock is writing his name in the snow...
Although privatization (especially in Britain) often does not work, some financial incentive for efficiently utilizing the available frequencies would be useful.
In other words, if you're wasting say 5MHz of perfectly good bandwidth, and replacing all your kit with something modern doing the same in 0.5MHz would cost you X, it would be reasonable if you'd end up saving money if you did so (of course replacing all those millions of radios is not an option, just look at where DAB went).
HAM people already do this, sort of (not benefiting financially ofcourse, just in a everyone benefits sort of way). It pays off to use the very limited resources they get as efficiently as possible so they do so.
No, things are way better than when the Government was running things. Come on guys, you've seen what Krustyburger was like when the IRS took it over ("Please fill in this form. Your burgers will be with you within 6 to 8 weeks.").
K.
Does anyone think that "market forces" and "ethical business" (laf) will manage the airwaves? This will be the biggest destruction of the commons seen to date.
Great idea of the British. Unfortunately other EU-countries are not that far yet. So instead of a harmonized market it becomes disharmonized. Gives the French another reason not to harmonize their spectrum use
Use Adsense for Charity
I suspect you meant to post that comment from one of your troll accounts and not the one with such a low UID.
all decisions about a resouce have to occur in the context of politics. All decisions are political decisions. If the group that wants censorship has more votes than the group that doesn't want censorship, then there'll be censorship.
But the alternative is worse - substitute "business" for "politic[s|al]" and "money" for votes". I would much rather have such common resources managed by gov. than by business. I may not trust gov, but I trust big businesses even less.
If you don't like the decisions made about the resource, you can buy your own.
Great idea! Where can I buy a spectrum?
Elitist! It's not my fault I came out of the geek closet at a mature age! I wanna buy a triple digit ID off someone.
--All the good sigs are taken
OMFG!
They've FINALLY got it RIGHT!
YEAHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!
--
Toby
Mods, you realize he's joking, right?
The spectrum should be all wi-fi network . This would solve alot of problems. It would operate like the internet. The internet is the best analogy. It needs to be regulated by a consortium .
Selling it the QVCs' and Clearchannels' of this world will only bring censorship and political propoganda which is going on right now.
We in the U.S. need independence with integrity.
Market forces are not a cure-all, as the AM Stereo debacle illustrated.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
My general rule of thumb is that for civilian matters private companies do better but charge more, but get less complaints because it's not out of taxes (just take a look at the USPS vs. the private UPS, where do you think there are more lost packages?) and my rationale for that is because they're charging you more for a better service.
On the other hand, for military matters, the government knows best (specifically the pentagon, not the bureaucrats in congress).
~Ilyanep
To get message, take amount of carrier pigeons at each stage mod 2. Then decode binary.
Check out the congressional record for last few days (http://thomas.loc.gov)
In spite of the years of emergency comms support given by the Amateur service, the FCC just approved BPL, which promises to render the entire HF spectrum pretty much unusable.
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
Just wait until everybody needs to get their damned color TVs off MY FREQUENCY! :)
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
Oh, the terror of the free-market! It will ruin us all! It will eat our children, destroy our homes, and convert our wives to to satanic beastiality! Oh my gawd!!
Yeah, because the FCC has done such a superb job (of spectrum-allocation, among other things). Riiiight...
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
Actually, the ACA in Australia introduced technology neutral tradeable spectrum licences in 1998.
"MWUUUHAHAHAHAHAAAA!"
You must think in Russian.
Sorry, back to "Names and Meanings of Ideologies 101" for you.
In Fascism, private property is nominally own by private interests, however it is controlled by the State.
You are thinking of Mercantilism, where government force is used in favour of big businesses.
Classical Liberalism: All your base are belong to you.
Actually, I ducked the issue, and submitted "UK spectrum to be thrown open" or somesuch. In fact, I managed to write the whole thing without an "-ise" or "-ize". And spell "superseded" correctly. Peter
I would like to draw your attention to the work of Yochai Benkler http://www.benkler.org/.
He argues that there is no scarcity in the radio spectrum, and government regulation or market allocation is essentially outdated by the arrival of smart radios.
"The current legal framework for radio transmission relies on administrative licensing of broadcasters. The emerging regulatory alternative replaces licensing with an exhaustive system of property rights in the radio frequency spectrum. This article analyzes a third alternative: egulating wireless transmissions as a public commons, as we today regulate our highway system and our computer networks. The choice we make among these alternatives will determine the path of development of our wireless communications infrastructure.
Its social, political, and cultural implications are likely to be profound."
the article quoted is Overcoming Agoraphobia: Building the Commons of the Digitally Networked Environment http://www.benkler.org/agoraphobia.pdf
in that article he argues for treating the spectrum as a commons: "Our capacity to think about the truly central questions concerning regulation of wireless communications is obscured by the language we use to discuss the problem. When we speak of regulating wireless communications, we speak of managing a resource, the spectrum. Generally, we use market-based solutions for resource management, and therefore when posed with such a problem look for something to which we can affix property rights to be traded in the market. But there is no such thing as spectrum. There is no ether out there, no finite physical resource that needs to be allocated. There are simply people communicating with each other, transmitting and receiving messages with equipment that uses electromagnetic waves to encode meaningful communications and send them over varying distances without using a wire. Spectrum management means regulating how these people use their equipment. Spectrum allocation, whether it be done by licensing or auctioning, is the practice whereby government solves this coordination problem by threatening most people in society that it will tear down their antennas and confiscate their transmitters if they try to communicate with each other using wireless communications equipment without permission."
As for assigning private rights to commons there is a big problem. Once You start to dismantle the commons, You bump into BIG problems, like in the case of any cultural expression.
another very good article an that question: Michael F. Brown: Can Culture Be Copyrighted? http://www.williams.edu/AnthSoc/brown-ca98.pdf
or to put it in an other way: just because all images in this picture are private property, should we think this form of expression (by Banksy) is illegal without the IP owners consent: http://mokk.bme.hu/~bodo/banksy/banksy3.jpg?
Believe it! What we can count on is that if the bandwidth isn't being used, it is in jeapardy of being taken, or in this case, sold to the highest bidder. Nothing like whoring out your hobby just because you can't replenish your numbers quickly enough. This is:
1)a wakeup call to amateurs to get active using the bandwidth they have and recruiting new HAMS to the hobby to do the same, and
2)a wakeup call to radio manufacturers to get their pricing competitive, get their technology out of the vaccuum tube days (I know it's digital, but there is more technology in a PDA than in any radio - how difficult would it be to add flash memory and a basic OS to an HT...honestly) and pursue technology that interacts with today's world.
Otherwise, we will end up reading about ourselves in history books and crying on each others' shoulders in Denny's because we can no longer freely talk about complete nonsense between storm nets. - W9BSH
IMHO we must seprate medium and content. Looking at the post you see that those who oppose the measura are worried about the variety and quality of content. And those that support it are looking forward to a modernization of the technology.
But look at the way deregulation has worked in the US: merge beetween content producers and distributors, leading to lack of plurality, and merge of content with corporate interests (including, but not restricted to advertising). Moreover, it led to monopolization, with some corporations owing more than 90% of the market in areas of low population density.
It's SO 21st century: Find something that was built with public funds; then steal it.
Astro
Firstly this Native American wisdom crap. They were just like any other human beings - they squabbled, exploited the environment for their short term advantage and all the usual stuff that we do. They hunted species to extinction, just check out the historical record. It's just that being a small population in a big continent they caused less damage.
Exactly the one area of brilliance I'm trying to point out- they had a smaller population, they lived below the carrying capacity of the land, they were LEAVERS.
Secondly you are a Marxist are you? So Lenin screwed up the great man's ideas did he? Did Mao get it right? How's Fidel doing? Kim Chong-Il in North Korea? Face it, Marxism has *never* worked *anywhere*. A lot of people have suffered needlessly in order to prove that one.
Where in Marxist's ideas do you find the necessity for a dictatorship? And what makes you think that I'm a classical Marxist? Dosn't the word "Hacker" mean ANYTHING to you?
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Sorry, I really don't understand what you mean. In what sense were they *leavers*?
Actually, most human civilizations have been leavers- only three strains have been takers, and the taker culture has a tendency to be viral, taking up all available territory. The terminology comes from Daniel Quinn, a science fiction writer big into ecology- but I found out just last night that the basic theology behind it is both animistic and Roman Catholic. Leavers leave their ultimate survival in the hands of God- or the gods- or the spirits- basically in the hands of external forces. Takers, on the other hand, take control of their own survival, and the survival of their neighbors and friends.
As to marxism, I don't care what your second name is. Suppose I call myself Nazi Benefactor. Is that alright?
Perfectly fine- after all, Nazism in it's pure form is a type of being a benefactor. I'd just assume that you're using the second world to modify the first; and thus you aren't the type of Nazi looking to scapegoat and kill Jews, but instead you're the type of National Socialist that merges the power of the corporation with the power of government to provide some benefit to the people. That's what I mean by keeping an open mind.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
How can a theology be both animistic *and* Roman Catholic? Animism is a heresy. Ask the Pope.
Even heresies, the Church has learned over the centuries, often contain much truth. More than 75% of Martin Luther's complaints, to take a recent example, are now Canon Law.
The example from animism is this: Take what you need- and what God gives- but no more. Moderation is key- extremes are bad. That's true in Roman Catholicism and in animism- and speaks to what has gone wrong with corporatism.
And what is "ultimate survival"?
A good example to me is why the Church is against Euthanasia- ultimately, we must leave our survival up to God, and not take our own life or the lives of others.
Native Americans hunted game for food, built shelters, made clothes - they looked after themselves like human beings do.
Yes, they did- and there's nothing wrong with this. What goes wrong is when we let one deadly sin rule over all else- Greed, Gluttony, Lust, Pride, Envy, Anger, Sloth. Primative tribes (not just Native Americans) understood this- do you?
And if your mind is so open as to find the good in Nazism then you'll believe anything.
And what is wrong with belief, may I ask? What is wrong with having hopes and dreams?
How much Marx have you read, by the way?
Enough to know the four places he went wrong:
1. Denial of religion. For without moral values, sharing ceases to be a virtue.
2. Lack of proper data gathering. Without knowing the wants and needs of the population, over production and under production is inevitable
3. Lack of patience- the technology wasn't ready for what he was proposing at the time- agricultural science was just begining to prove itself, and 98% of the population was still required to work on the farms for the society to eat. A far cry from today when our main economic problem is a surplus of labor.
4. Centralization- this is the worst mistake he made, and it's a mistake that is being duplicated today in corporatism and centralized stock markets under so-called "capitalistic" countries.
My current recomendation is a very light touch- $1/mile shipping tax on standard 40' shipping containers (to slow down globalism and pay for the environmental damage that globalism causes), 1% increase in corporate income taxes (to pay for permaculture grants worldwide), and a reasonable maximum wage law tied to a certain percentage of the minimum wage- at least 1000%, but maybe 10000%, since our culture is far more complex than ancient Greece. This is enough to encourage standard market forces to become more moral- no more central planning needs be done than that. With less interferance from multinational corporations, local populations doing local planning can take care of the rest- and are more likely to have unified religious values, less complex data gathering requirements, and a better knowledge and wish to care for the local environment as well.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
A 2nd clarification: I've said where Marx went wrong- here's where Adam Smith went wrong:
1. Denial of religion- by embracing one of the seven deadly sins, Adam Smith denied morality as a motivator for human beings.
2. Lack of proper data gathering- while the Invisible Hand of the Market is very good at determining WANTS it's very bad at determining NEEDS- particularily of people who are unemployed or underemployed and thus denied entry into the market.
3. Lack of patience- Capitalism wants efficiency immediately, and will run you right over and pound you into the ground if you get in the way.
4. Centralization- by not putting any checks and balances on greed, mergers of corporations mean that in the end there can be only one mega-corporation- one board to rule them all, one board to find them, one board to bind them all and in the darkness profit from them.
Oddly enough, this doesn't change my recommendations AT ALL- the same 4 things are wrong, and the same set of decentralization methods will fix them.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
This is the problem. Nothing wrong with hoping for a nice present at Christmas. Nothing wrong dreaming about enjoying the nice present. However if you really *believe* that a white-bearded gentleman in a sleigh pulled by reindeer is going to come down your chimney to deliver it you are fucked.
In other words, you are a skeptic- and quite possibly a solipsist. Let me ask you this- are your senses perfect? Do you ever feel something, see something, taste something, or smell something that isn't there? How do you know that what you think is true, is true?
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Ok, so you get your ideas from sci-fi authors. That's why you're so wooly-headed.
2nd reply- I want to know who YOU get your ideas from. After all, most scientists start out as science fiction writers- that's where new theories come from. Some of them end up in fields of study that consist entirely of fiction- like economics.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.