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Another View of the FCC and Spectrum Scarcity
Bob_Robertson writes "Tim Swanson on the Ludwig von Mises Institute site is asking, has the FCC put itself out of a job by allowing the 47-49 MHz, 2.4 GHZ and other "open spectrum" frequencies, thus focusing innovation and development into making fantastic use of limited resources? The basis of the FCC's existence is "scarcity", so what happens when there isn't any scarcity any more? LVMI has looked into the FCC before."
prefer to think of it as "reducing the workload."
Note to mods: I'm probably being sarcastic.
Isn't that kind of an oxymoron, a governmental agency going out of business?
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
Support your local pirate radio, much like http://www.freakradio.org/
"Simplify, simplify, simplify!" Thoreau
Well... there's always cellphones and other things for which the maximum unregulated transmit power isn't enough.
The article ignores the fact that the FCC is not a business. It is largely a regulatory agency there to ensure that the spectrums don't get abused and misused. As long as people are using the spectrums, the FCC will be there to regulate them.
"The human right of a free press depends upon the human right of private property in newsprint."--Murray N. Rothbard [1] Anyone who quotes the great Murray Rothbard is undoubtable.
I have nothing to hide. So, why are you spying on me?
The FCC exists simply because Congress wills it -- it is only when the Congress itself is out of a job that the FCC will cease to be.
Free market, you're my hero! You've rescued pensions and defeated the evil of public water in South America, saved the airlines and the public schools here in the US and done countless acts of good around the world! Now that you have set your sights on the public airwaves, I'm sure we will all have gigabit wireless within a few months.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I can not think of one instance when the increase in bandwidth of various communications technologies lead to the end of the need for more increases in bandwidth.
Technological innovations to increase bandwidth are always followed by other technological innovations to use that bandwidth.
As a result periods of plenty will quickly be followed by periods of scarcity - and thus the FCC will need to intervene on behalf of the public.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
since when does the FCC generate revenue?
FDR's Thought Police: Still Alive, Still Censoring
Ludwig Von Mises owns. War Damn Eagle. If you dont know what i'm talking about, come down to Alabama sometime.
The FCC might seem like it's putting itself out of business by deregulating some bandwidth but the nature of radio is that those frequencies are scarce. No matter how much digital encoding and adaptive technology that is used there will still be legit uses for wireless analog communications at high power. Therefore there will always be a need for some regulation of the wireless spectrum and a need for some governing body to decide what is allowed where and how much.
Now, the question is, will the FCC become irrelevant. Well, if current governmental trends continue then no. The current feds will NOT give up their current moral valve that the FCC provides. The FCC may become absorbed by the FTC or the Dept of Homeland Defense, or it's responsibilites split between them but be sure that the government will not give up it's eminent domain over the radio spectrum because they want to control availability and content.
Another thing to consider is all the other nations that have not given up their regulations over wireless communications. The brits still license TV recievers and most nations license their Ham Radio operators. The FCC will not disappear until there is no international need for them.
So sez KC2MMW.
73's
um, sorry the new no code tech is all in the VHF and UHF very little code in that range alot of voice and TV/data thou. Besides to take those freq's back would be a nightmare when most of them are used for the Satillite retrans and even shuttle/ISS relaxation. If you are preped to down about 40 Satillites than maybe you can get a few back...
I'm told you are what you eat, does that mean I can be you by tomorrow with some A1?
Odd things can happen, and if the application is mission critical, it will likely fail.
The only reason we do things via the license free band is because of the fact, that it is, free.
I bet for most of us, if we had to pay $$$ to use our own private wireless networks (licensing) the popularity would have never been as high as it is.
For instance, FRS are relatively new frequencies for us to use. It has only been recently that we can use these (approx) 460Mhz radio spectrum with out a license.
Anyone who uses FRS knows that in a city all of the channels can be congested. This is the reason why mission critical services (like police, airport, etc) pay for 'private' spectrum. These organizations usually have access to big money, hence the reason why it is big money to purchase spectrum.
It costs way more to buy digital spectrum than analogue/narrow channel/voice/digital voice/low-speed spectrum.
I think in Canada to buy a 10khz wide VHF or UHF piece of the spectrum, say for a few mobiles with in a 25 km distance is only a few thousand a year. Where large (say 24mhz wide) microwave allocations get auctioned for millions of dollars.
Since the spectrum goes to the highest bidder, and basically any commercial operation is given the OK these days... The only thing needed is someone to keep track of who owns what part of the spectrum. It's no longer considered a shared public resource, but more of a leased property. I could see the whole FCC being replaced by a clerk to keep track of ownership and companies buying/selling spectrum as they see fit so long as they notify the clerk. Anyone using the wrong spectrum will naturally be dealt with in the courts. OTOH, the FCC does still pretend to support the public interest by issuing fines for saying certain things or showing a boob on TV.
Please. I'm sure the Mises family has made Emperor Franz Joseph I proud for ennobling their ancestor. Of course, Franzie is famous for, when someone suggested his army could use tanks (in WW!, where they sided with Germany), he said, "Absolutely not. The horses will be startled!".
Mark
In the past, scarcity may have been a money maker for the FCC. These days I think they're in the censorship business.
Also, many HAMs are radio technology engineers that learn and experient nearly consequence free in those bands to create products that can work in the commercial band space. Hams represent only a vew small portion of the usable VHF UHF SHF, etc bands.
I think in the WHOLE VHF band they use 4 to 6 Mhz (this is the eqv to 1 broadcast TV channel) I the UHF band I believe they use 30 Mhz. There are experiements with TV signals and medium speed networks.
The license free band (2.4 ghz) have much more bandwidth available then Amateurs have access to. The difference is Amateurs have access in bands that aren't as desirable for broadband use.
For instance, VHF has little use for broadband other than long distance and good propogation. You would have to use a much larger portion of the VHF band than the 2.4 ghz band to get the same 11mbps (or 54mbps, or whatever modulation scheme you're using for data xfr).
Other problem in the VHF band is that your signals would go SO far, you would have to share/contend with a FAR GREATER number of users in the air space.
Leave the HAMs alone, they innovate and don't take up much space. In fact, the license free 2.4 band overlaps with the a amateur allocation. So in a way, some space has already been taken. Generally, there are no problems as a result of this overlap because many hams simply use WiFi equipment there too.
"I beg to differ", says the 20-year old ham.
Nice troll, but I happen to personally know 7 or 8 hams under the age of 21. It is not dead.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 Whoops, silly middle mouse button...
Example:
(Emphasis added) While DSS can do many wonderful things for your signal, "spreading the transmission in 360-degrees" isn't one of them.
(emphasis added) AES voice encryption is a good thing. How will that be the primary factor allowing independence from the regulated terrestrial telco infrastructure?
The overall message of the article is interesting, but it appears to wander throughout the technical communications landscape. Throwing in multiple buzzwords in close proximity does not mean it makes sense.
Originally, the FCC was filled with engineers. Currently, the leadership of the FCC is dominated by lawyers. Until that trend reverses itself we shouldn't expect to see fundamental changes in spectrum licensing unless its ordered by congress.
The FCC isn't going to regulate itself out of a job. Such a thing would be the antithesis of government. There will always be services that fall under the regulation of the FCC, and users who are not willing to expend the required brain-power to make something better work.
Do some searches for "adapative radio" or "cognizant radio" and you'll find things which really could stand spectrum allocation on its head.
Oh, I see... there are fewer IPv6 addresses than grains of sand, except there are more. WTF?
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Propogation increases and bandwidth decreases as you enter the popular ham bands 144, 430 mhz.
As propogation increases, you share with more users.
As bandwidth decreases, it is less desireable to use, especially when shared with so many!
So far it looks like the FCC's current regulation of radio frequencies is: 1) Make it impossible for small radio stations to exist on the FM band. 2) Make it easy for Mega-conglomerates to control all broadcasts on the FM band. 3) See above rules and swap FM for whatever band you are talking about. The reality is a pretty grim one. The FCC hasn't opened the small footprint radio station applications in many years, so smaller voices are not being given the opportunity to speak. I do not however think that the FCC should be shut down. The FCC needs to be about seeing that access to means of communication is not monopolized by a few commercial interests. What the FCC, and their "sponsors" don't seem to understand is that competition really is good for everybody.
I'm a happy pessimist. I expect and prepare for the worst, when it doesn't happen I am pleasantly surprised.
The religious freaks have decided his post was a troll because they don't want you to hear the truth. censorship sucks, please UPMOD Parent
"Simplify, simplify, simplify!" Thoreau
He's sleeping with the fishes.
Go and find the worst food in your house and post pictures of yourself eating it here! http://foodtorture.6.forumer.com/index.php
Do you really think scarcity is going away by assigning a couple megahertz to unlicensed use? Have you ever tried using Wifi in a densely populated area? 12 access points in one spot? Plus Bluetooth, video bridges and microwave ovens? Scarcity is right then and there. Also, longhaul connections are pretty much unavailable due to power limits, which can't be raised by much for unlicensed bands without risking health problems and interference with mission critical (licensed) applications.
If there were no shortage of usable radio frequencies, then the FCC would obviously be pretty much out of a job, except for power regulations perhaps, but the assumption that scarcity is somehow going away is bogus.
we need them to ensure that we have broadband "competition", and to make sure that I can always choose between my local telco oligargy and my local cable hegemony when it comes to broadband service.
Amen.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Here's a table showing the frequency allocations in the United States. Other countries have very similar allocations.
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/osmhome/allochrt.html
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 Whoops, silly middle mouse button...
Seriously, it's a bad article that is not well thought out.
Considering if I pick up my 2.4Ghz telephone to take a call, it completely whacks out my 802.11 wireless internet signal... It doesn't seem at all clear to me that scarcity of the frequency was created by the FCC. Rather it was the FCC which was created to manage the already existing reality.
Now it's true that the FCC has gone beyond the boundaries of what otherwise rationale people would consider prudent. But that's not the focal point of this article.
i'll use whatever frequency i damn well please...
The long term goal of the FCC (and any branch of government)should be to drive themselves out of business as much as possible, if not avoid getting involved in the first place.
One purpose of the FCC is to allocate the radio spectrum to ensure effective communication.
Allowing freedom for the widespread adoption of new technology while ensuring current systems can remain in place is a balancing act.
They seem to have been doing a pretty good job so far. I doubt it will come, assume the FCC is successful and there is sufficient capacity available so that they don't need to worry about controlling the spectrum, wouldn't that be a great success story for the FCC ?
haha, a few hundred MHz of the entire regulated radio spectrum (0 to near 1,000,000 MHz) being "open",, hardly means the fcc is going out of business any time soon.
You'll have your gigabit wireless - and in the best of all free markets you will be able to use your recently-deregulated AK-47 for occasions when your neighbor's gigabit wireless interoperates with your own.
Come to think of it my Wifi, microwave oven, cordless phone, and all my neighbors cheap-ass Chinese light dimmers and halogen lights all interoperate now - seamlessly!
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
You know the sticker about harmful interference on nearly every piece of electronic equipment you own? I doubt that the problems of interference, either purposeful not, are going to go away any time soon.
What happens when someone starts manufacturing some great device that belches out RFI all over your precious WiFi? How about the neighbor with a high power amplifier that screws up all your phones? When Verizon decides that Nextel's phones should be jammed? The new one mile range AP that just happens to cause burns if you stand near it?
You gotta find first gear in your giant robot car
Ok, they have another story on their main page titled "In Defence of Bribery" http://www.mises.org/story/1884 where the author claims bribing government officials is just another method to get things done. WTF??
I think people should be free to lynch corporate executives who think money should control governments. Laws apply to EVERYONE for a reason. Not just when they are convenient when you're suing someing using the DMCA. At least the Worldcom CEO got 35 years of sweet man lovin'...
Coding with assembly is like playing with Legos. Coding an application in assembly is like building a car with Legos.
Don't forget that the Bill of Rights was written to stop the new Federal government from infringing on the powers of the existing States.
The principles of the founding of the United States is one of "federalism". A weak central government of explicitly enumerated powers (article 1 section 8), separate from the several States, with their governments of general powers rather than enumerated.
That there were States with their own constitutions limiting their general powers is a testament to the fact that government at any level must be restrained or it will abuse its citizens.
The fact that certain states did indeed regulate speech, recognize religion(s), restrict firearms and all the other things that the Fed.Gov is prohibitted doing in the Bill Of Rights is just part of what the Founders lived with.
Some states were utterly against restricting the right of free speech, others utterly against having their power to restrict speech infringed upon. The compromise was to simply prohibit the Fed.Gov from interfering with the states one way or another at all.
Sounds like a great compromise to me. I wish we could all compromise by simply abolishing the power of government to make the decision for us. Whatever that decision is.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
I liked the article until the part of incorporating the technology into fricking cellphones. That makes no sense to me.
We need a public movement to start an cheap,'open' xmax/wimax network for low cost rate($5) portable phones.
You still need some kind of regulation otherwise you'll get people just stepping on others. Some broadband company will open up and use a huge chunk of the spectrum at a very high power to offer service, stepping on other low power uses. You can have as crafty a digital encoding as you like, at some point it'll still get overwhelmed by interference.
There is no "problem" with being left alone. The problems only happen when the government interferes with people.
...except paying bureaucrats for doing nothing. That service is in high demand, but no one is willing to pay for it without the gun to their head called "taxes".
We have no socialiazed health care.
Medicare. Medicaid. 50 state governments with all their own programs. Plus city programs. At least.
People can only get 7 years of welfare in their entire life.
Move to California. Or New York.
Social Security is not enough to live on.
Try Mississippi or Alabama. Or, better yet, go read the law and see where it says SUPPLIMENTAL SECURITY INCOME, it was never intended to be something to live on all by itself.
But, human nature being what it is, people get lazy when they think they have a "safety net" and cry when they find out there is no such thing.
Don't confuse me with some "conservative" idiot who thinks corporate welfare is ok but personal welfare sucks. I have yet to see any government function that cannot be done better and cheaper privately, if there is any demand for the service at all.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
It's basically low powered wifi over a modulated(fm) type signal.
c fm?RSS&FeatureID=1570
http://www.techworld.com/mobility/features/index.
If I am wrong then tell me why.
I do not believe that the government "of the people" has a mandate to ignore the popular sentiment (which our government does in many instances) in favor of preserving its own authority and the "status quo". I do not believe that the government should insert itself into matters of morality.
Unfortunately, our government has already done all of these things; I don't believe it will cease to do so of its own accord.
In closing, have a care whome you would call "not an American". I am quite certain I have earned the right not to be so addressed.
How is allowing the states to make the choices keeping government out of our livs?
How is giving the states more power to abuse us then the federal government currently has/does "abolish the power of government to make decisions for us"?
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
The claim made by this obscure "institute" (really just a few people with a few dollars and a website) are simply insane. Spectrum is still scarce, and a few mhz of unlicenced (but still regulated) spectrum isn't going to turn into a huge data pipe just because of The Free Market.
It seems like libertarians have a fanatical belief in the powers of free markets. Free markets will solve all problems! It reminds me of all the marijuana extremists who claim that legalizing marijuana will cure all ills (including environmental, health, and economics).
AccountKiller
" Freedom of Speech != Freedom to be Vulgar"
1) Yes it does
2) Everybody has their own definition of vulgar, therefore, its impossible to regulate opinion.
Plus, the fact that (a) you aren't forced to listen (b) you don't have to listen to what you find vulgar is your freedom.
I have kids. I tell them what they can and can't watch. I don't want to dumb society down in the name of the children. I find that offensive and vulgar.
I hope Mr. Swanson doesn't consider himself an RF Engineer - quotes like this one are laughable: The following quote is wrong on so many levels I don't know where to start.
- I'll wait for the actual 30Mbps, theoretical Mbps's are useless to me.
- Is that 1 Watt of power transmitting that theoretical 30Mbps EIRP, or the power at the transmitter? What antennas are specified? 1 Watt into a 30 dBi antenna is the same as 1 kW into a 0 dBi antenna.
- Excuse me? The FCC can't detect it? Huh? Even with 'normal' DSS, it's detectable. If your 'power-footprint' is so impressive, how can your receivers detect it?
- The FCC can't regulate it? Double huh? If it's between 9 kHz and 300 GHz, it's already regulated. It may not require a license, but it is regulated.
What a joke. Reminds me of the super-efficient modulation method VMSK debunked by Uber Nerd Phil Karn, KA9Q.Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
The author seems to have a decent grasp on the effects of technological innovation on the market, but he has no grasp of the structure of the market itself. Without centralized artificial restrictions on spectrum usage, the military, commercial radio, emergency services and hobbyists would all have had to wait until radio's tools caught up to make use of it. At the time of the establishment of the FCC, radio much less useful without artifically defining spectrum usage. The barrier to entry would have been too high.
The FCC will always be needed to protect spectrum for low-tech communications, which are still needed. As to the FCC's censorship and their handling of pirate radio, they've totally acted in contradiction to their purpose. However, the FCC is a public institution and can be raigned in, but I doubt that's the approach someone writing for the Von Mises Institute would take. The irrational belief in the 'a priori' axiom leads to a logic that makes throwing the baby out with the bathwater appear rational.
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
> Exposing kids to everything allows them to become well-rounded
> adults who are aware of everything.
You didn't have to say you weren't actually a parent, that boneheaded remark was enough to tell everyone that you not only aren't one, you have zero experience with them and that you probably had a screwed up childhood yourself, so you have no reference points. Hell, you have probably never even had to teach an adult anything if you can make that statement.
Yes, children need to be exposed to all sorts of things if they are to become responsible citizens when they grow up. But at the appropriate time. Children AREN'T just small adults. The higher reasoning skills take time to develop. Some concepts need to be taught after others are fully understood.
Example. C wouln't exactly be the first choice to teach someone to program who had never done any codeing at all, but a teacher doing so would be merely odd who did so. (Might be trying a radical new technique.) But if that teacher then extected said student to figure out the hairier bits of pointers in the first week they would be zarking mad.
Same with kids. Advanced concepts in love/romance/sexuality/relationships can't be properly understood without a good foundation in both teaching and experience dealing with simpler relationships among family and friends. Not to mention that their hardware isn't properly configured (both the obvious physical changes to the external hardware and the ones you obviously have no concept of in the ol wetware) until fairly close to the modern legal adult line. Most of the readers here on slashdot, hell the whole world, are adults still trying to figure this stuff out, expecting a five year old to understand is just idiocy.
Democrat delenda est
I'm sorry you didn't understand what I wrote.
The various States pre-existed the Fed.gov. It is they that granted the Fed.gov a specific list of enumerated powers. The Bill of Rights was ratified by the States as a further restriction upon the powers of the Fed.gov.
How is allowing the states to make the choices keeping government out of our livs?
That has nothing to do with my opinion about "allowing" the States anything. The States were ensuring that the Fed.gov would stay out of State business, since the States came first and otherwise they wouldn't have agreed to this new central government.
How is giving the states more power to abuse us then the federal government currently has/does "abolish the power of government to make decisions for us"?
Again, the States always had all they power they wanted, being governments of general (not enumerated) powers. Reading the 9th and 10th Amendments of the Bill of Rights makes that clear. All powers are reserved to the States and the People except those specifically enumerated.
My personal opinion is that the Constitution for the United States of America was a bloodless counter-revolution by vested interests who wanted to re-create the very merchantilist policies (like raising the tax on tea that was already a legal monopoly, see "Boston Tea Party"). Entering into the Constitutional compact was a severe step backwards for Liberty.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
The main purpose of a bureaucracy is to keep themselves in existance by making the problem they were trying to solve worse.
For a better example, see the War on Drugs.
"Lowest common denominator" arises from the media organ striving to serve the public interest. If it is really excellent, it won't be obscure.
> The overall message of the article is interesting, but it appears
> to wander throughout the technical communications
> landscape. Throwing in multiple buzzwords in close proximity
> does not mean it makes sense.
Agreed. To me, the article felt like the product of a spam-generator fed by Newton's Telecom Dictionary.
While I was reading the article, I kept being distracted by thoughts of "what do these two topics have to do with each other?" and "what is he talking about?" For example,
> spreading the transmission in 360-degrees so there were no
> dead spots
Dead spots aren't just a function of the antenna, but the terrain. And no amount of signal processing is going to make up for coverage anomalies. Soft handoffs mitigate this somewhat, but all that's allowing you to do is combine the signal from several coverage sources.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
You sound like a lolbertarian to me.
I was able to read as far as this paragraph:
1994 the market brought forth the evolution of the digital phone era which was then quickly followed up in 1995 with digital spread spectrum (DSS). These innovations were designed to increase security by eliminating potential eavesdropping (e.g. listening to your neighbors conversations) and to increase the effective range of the phone (e.g. spreading the transmission in 360-degrees so there were no dead spots). And finally, in 1998 the FCC opened up the frequency range of 2.4 GHz (and added 5.8 GHz in 2003).
Once I got to that point, it was clear to me that the author has no idea what he is talking about. He does not understand radio technology, period.
www.wavefront-av.com
The Interstate Commerce Commission begs to differ.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
The FCC is a regulatory body. Spectrum scarcity is only a small piece of what they deal with. This isn't the biggest issue that they deal with on a daily basis since the spectrum allocations change infrequently.
The FCC has to regulate devices that use the allocated portions of the spectrum and make sure everybody plays by the rules. This requires a lot of paperwork management skills. A large proportion of all electronic devices have documentation on emissions filed with the FCC even if they aren't designed for RF transmission. They also have to handle licensing and site location issues for the high power TV and radio broadcasts, cell phone towers and microwave repeaters.
Then there is the "morality" branch that makes sure TV and radio transmissions are free of indecent material. Naturally, this part of the FCC has its priorities in order when they let Kid Rock get by with desecrating the US flag and then get all bent out of shape over a tactless display of a nipple.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
The FCC is no more going to go "out of business" than traffic cops. They'll be needed to keep all sorts of nasty folk from trashing the spectrum, disrupted much-needed commuications, and in general making a nuisance of themselves much like spammers--a form of communication we've yet to come up with a good way to regulate.
Personally, I get tired of ideologues with political philosophies that can be written on one side of a 3x5 card. Life's too complicated for them to handle, so they develop their grand but simplistic systems. For some it means bigger and bigger government, for others it means the government will go away. Both are silly.
In March 2005, the FCC ruled to open up a new swath of the Public Airwaves (in the 3650-3700 MHz range) for use by Community Wireless Networks, neighborhood organizations, independent ISPs, schools, churches, and anyone else who wanted to create wireless broadband systems.
But now, a coalition of major corporations is fighting to keep this spectrum for themselves -- they want the FCC to reopen the 3650-3700MHz proceedings and get the FCC to overturn its previous decision.
Until August 11, 2005 you can file comments opposing the reopening of the 3650-3700MHz proceedings and stop this pillaging in its tracks.
Here's how you can help save the Public Airwaves in under 5 minutes:
A. Point your browser to http://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/ecfs/upload_v2.cgi
B. Enter "04-151" (without the quotes) as the Proceeding in item one.
C. Select "Reply to Petition for Reconsideration" as the Document Type for item 12 and fill out the rest of the form.
D. Type in your comment in the "Send a Brief Comment to FCC" blue text box towards the bottom of the webpage.
Not sure what to write? All you need is a few sentences or a paragraph identifying yourself and/or your organization and why you think keeping the 3650-3700MHz band open is a good idea -- e.g., it supports equitable access to broadband connectivity, spurs innovation, helps lower infrastructure costs (and thus consumer prices), lessens congestion in urban areas, helps connect rural areas, creates new markets for hardware, etc. etc. etc. Feel free to also thank the FCC for opening up the spectrum in the first place (and always be nice) -- don't forget, FCC staffers are people too.
If scores of people and organizations write in, the FCC will listen. Please take 5 minutes right now to help forge national telecommunications policy in the public interest.
The one day I don't read /. I miss a post about the LVMI. Ugh.
I'm not sure it matters. Analog radio is dead. Podcasting is taking over most of my listening needs. All my teenage employees iPod their music, too.
I don't see the FCC being important anyway. All the good technology seems to find ways around regulated frequencies. Interference? It gets better with time, in my life.
All the pro amd anti-free market posts miss one thing: no AnCap like me supports the illusion of a corporation. We're individualists who believe in responsibility. Corporate greed, government tyranny, it is all the same. Individuals rarely have power without either being in government (force) or being incorporated (protected by those with force).
Although some of the comments here have been intelligent and made with understanding of economics, many of them have been socialist and interventionist nonsense. Hence, I'd like to offer a broad, but brief, response.
The argument by many here seems to run something like the following: The spectrum is scarce, relative to the demand for it; therefore, the government should regulate it. This is simply nonsense. It is precisely when things are scarce that we most need private property rights in them. How would these rights be acquired? By homesteading the relevant portion of the spectrum. Of course, what constitutes "homesteading" a certain frequency is a continuum problem -- clearly, simply spewing out junk on it doesn't constitute homesteading it. One has to actually be making a real use of it.
In a For a New Liberty , Murray N. Rothbard, argued that we don't need State-intervention in the spectrum. See Personal Liberty: Freedom of Radio and Television . Contrary to the commonly held but mistaken view, there was not chaos in the spectrum before the FCC was created to intervene in it. Instead, things were working quite efficiently as courts recognized private property rights in spectrum homesteaded by different individuals. As Rothbard states, the belief that there was chaos prior to State-regulation of the spectrum is
As B.K. Marcus has noted, this account is supported by the memoirs of Herbert Hoover, who noted that One of our troubles in getting legislation [to nationalize the airwaves] was the very success of the voluntary system we had created. I would highly recommend reading the historical overview of the spectrum given by Marcus. Marcus argues that, in order to get support for legislation regulating the spectrum, Hoover purposefully created spectrum-socialism, granting licenses to all applications, free of price or restriction. This, of course, creates a tragedy of the commons.
What we need isn't regulation of the spectrum. Rather, we need deregulation and privatization (via homesteading) of the spectrum. Common law is perfectly capable of applying existing property-rights conventions to the spectrum, including accounting for interference (which would be analagous to building a mineshaft 2 feet under someone elses' house, hence causing it to collapse).
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Any wagers that the power still resided in the hands of the same specific people (who probably got transferred along with the power)?
Especially since he's talking about DSSS as helping alleviate dead-spots by "spreading the transmission in 360-degrees". He's not even talking about the antenna, much less the terrain. Besides matching the "spread" in the FLA (four-letter acro...) there is no correlation.
:P
I've got an excellent vertically polarized high-gain antenna on my ISM base station radio that does a great job of spreading my radiation through 360-degrees of azimuth on my OFDM PtoMP implementation.
Now, while that does sound cooler than "I've got a 14dBi omni on my WRT54GS", I don't think its going to spell the end of the FCC.
I'm a little bit confused by the story leader. It doesn't appear to be a coherent sentence. I presume it means that the FCC should allow those bands to be used by unregulated transmitters.
It is true that if all players work on a common form of time-division multiplexing that the number of transmitters can scale very widely, but there is nothing magical about these bands (other than them being wide -- much wider than, say, AM or FM broadcast bands). Transmitters will interfere with one another. Poorly designed or built transmitters will radiate out of band. Intermodulation will occur, causing out of band interference.
The FCC may or may not be the best regulator, but someone has to resolve the disputes, and I guess I'd rather it was through regulation than through lawsuits (which would happen in the absence of regulation, I guarantee it).
Just keep allocating frequencies to faster wireless internet protocols. Problem solved! ;)
No, I will not work for your startup
I have one of those 2.4 wireless phones I use just for screwing up the neighbor's access point; every time she puts a password on it, I plug in the phone. (My home LAN is all wired anyway.) She's now convinced that passwords seriously degrade reception, and asked me if a shorter password for her email account might help, too....
Why, yes, I am one of the bad guys, but Pavlovian conditioning is only a hobby of mine. Now if I can only convince her that having sex with me regularly will help her network reception; where did I put my BOFH excuse file...?
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Well, I do have a kid, and I find the idea that speech should be censored to be vulgar. I don't want him growing up in an evironment where saying things like 'tit' and 'ass' in a public forum is illegal. I will not explain to him that 'pronography' is bad because it is not. I will explain to him that jerks who think it is their right to criminalize speech while praising free speech are hypocrates, and that hypocracy is bad.
Spectrum scarcity is due solely to the continued usage of old, low-cost transmitting and receiving equipment.
An almost limitless amount of data can be transmitted in even the tiniest frequency band.
To prove this, go to a huge auditorium and peek through a tiny pin-hole in a piece of paper held very close to your eye. You will continue to see everything crisp and clear, proving that trillions upon trillions of photons can stream through the tiny pin-hole without interfering with each other at all.
Argument by way of "scarcity" has the same failure as monopoly theory- the statists reverse the definition of the terms to apply only to the free market instead of correctly pointing to the government as the only true monopoly maker (see USPS) and virtual monopoly maker in the corporate goliath vs. small businesses world (when they raise barriers to market entry by competitors.)
I sig, therefore I was.
Some amendments specifically restrain the Federal Government, and allow states to decide. The First Amendment is an example, placing a restriction on "congress."
Other parts of the Bill of Rights, however, (are supposed to) ensure that individual rights are protected, regardless of the governmental will of the states. The Second is one example, where rights are given specifically to "the people." This is not merely a restriction on the Federal Government, but on the individual States as well, since such enumerated rights exist completely independent of any government.
Of course, the whole Bill of Rights is soundly ignored these days. The Supremes have said that red is green, and 'taint no-one can say otherwise.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0126016/ Oh, the humanity..
I wish he (or she) didn't post as an anonymous coward, but the post is dead on.
Markets do work; it's government intervention that causes the failure. You can see it everywhere, from the airlines to the environment.
There truly is a scarce resource for frequencies that can perform for a particular service. The FCC seems to be taking a page out of this organization's play book. Look for bigger payouts for more spectrum if these trends continue. Paying for a resource that is not scarce is not going to happen by any commercial entity (although some non-profits might pony up because they don't know any better).
It is much easier to move to another state if the state you live in restricts what you believe in than to move to another country. There is a good chance that one of the states would closely match your beliefs. You also have more power to influence state and local reps than you do the federal.
The 17th amendment put the finishing touch on the loss of liberty. The Senators were supposed to represent the states' interests and the House represented the people. There is no longer anyone restricting the federal government from taking more power.
Scarcity is never a coherent reason for governmental regulation of any product, service or resource. All items on the free market command a certain price that reflects there levels of scarcity. Everything that is used by man is scarce, and priced accordingly. The government did not begin regulation of the airwave because of any spurious special "scarcity" reasoning, but because the government was growing worried that something in development of potential value was not under their control, and was not a money-making machine for them. The free-market system was working quite nicely prior to this, as whoever "homesteaded" a particular sector of the spectrum for the range of their transmission was given legal rights to that part of the spectrum, and anyone who invaded this private, homesteaded property was promptly sued and dealt with. Whenever the government barges its way in, you can bet it won't be anywhere nearly as efficient as the free-market, and will always be for the enlargement of its power and domination. After all, would you be free to say what you wanted if you had to acquire a licence to print a newspaper, a flyer or a blog, and if you said something the government didn't like, they could revoke your licence?
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
I agree with you in that "homesteading" of spectrum is a lot better than the FCC is now, but really - people are more than motivated for spectrum not to intefere anyhow. If you want to communicate wirelessly - you can't likely do so in a way that interferes with them with out them interfering with your communications as well - there is plenty of motivation for things to work out naturally without any rules at all. Even if you just spew interference to be a jerk or jam people, that wasts your time effort and money and is vulnerable to technical work arrounds and rf improvements.
.... VISIBLE LIGHT! The Sun spews trillions of watts of spectrum interference every second, yet we are still able to communicate visually without any problem at all. In fact, we expolit the sun light as an advnatage. In fact, you can shoot 20 zillion lazer beams across the city and chances are they wouldn't intefere at all, and if they did the information they transmit could still be easially mathematically seperated. There is no scarcity problem with spectrum, only with peoples will to effectively utilize it. Save free markets for the later, not artificial ones for the former.
In fact, to see how silly both homesteading and the FCC are, consider the spectrum frequencies we are the most familiar with
Don't forget that the Bill of Rights was written to stop the new Federal government from infringing on the powers of the existing States.
Yes, in fact 3 of the states at the time of the Bill of Rights had official state religions. They all really liked the 1st amendment because it prohibited Congress from making the establishment of religion in their state illegal. Yes, that's right, according to the original intent of the 1st amendment it's perfectly okay for a particular state to make a particular religion the official religion of that state.
"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys" P. J. O'Rourke
Your reaction in support of consumers is understandable, but misplaced. It is, in fact, the FCC that harms consumers by regulating the spectrum; in fact, once big corporations realized how profitable such was for them, they fully supported such. I'd suggest reading what I wrote, and the quotes and articles I referenced. You might find them enlightening.
PS: Obviously, I work for the Greedy Capitalist Pigs (GCPs).
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
The FCC allocates spectrum, to a large part, based upon available bandwidth. Narrowband, licensed frequencies below 1 GHz (with the exception of broadcast) are allocated with channels a few KHz apart. Shannon's Theorem dictates that data rate is limited by bandwidth and Signal/Noise ratio. On a voice channel with 7.5 KHz or 6/25 KHz of seperation to the adjacent channel the digital data rate is very limited (600-9600 bps). With the unlicened spectrum there are ways to increase the bandwidth to hundrends of KHz (spread spectrum), jump across many channels to avoid interference (frequency hopping) or to use many channels together in a multiplexed design (orthagonal frequency division multiplex) Unlicensed spectrum has done a great deal for innovation with 900 MHz radios with 1 Mbps data rates and 802.11 stuff with 108 Mbps data rate. Without changes like this a significant amount of spectrum would still be public safety and business with analog only voice systems.
Tisha Hayes
Do you expect others to help you pay for any of the things you want? Do you hold any responsibilities that are also held by others so that if you don't take care of them, someone else will (or might)?
I ask these things because Bob seems to be someone who will not take responsibility for something unless it is his alone, so that when he handles it, he gets whatever benefits accrue. He also seems like someone who would not expect anyone to help pay for any of the things he wants, including police protection and infrastructure.
Anders seems to be someone who does expect others to help pay, and he is also willing to help pay for others to get what they want. He also seems like someone who would not want to bear total responsibility for something, but rather he'd want others there to back him up if he fails.
I think I understand both positions, and I am closer to Bob's position. However, my most important question is yet to come: Do you feel at all pulled toward the other's arguments? I mean, if the other guy is trying to help you understand more, do you think he's doing a good job, or is he wasting his time? This question is important to me because it is where real change takes place, and that is something I cherish deeply.
Thanks in advance for your thoughtful answers.
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I am pleased that a "review" of the DiLorenzo book I recommended to you is online:
http://www.mises.org/story/1887
Even just in the review, many of the issues you raise are addressed.
It's not that I disagree that these are important issues, I disagree that coercive government intervention, regulation and operation through political expediency is in any way "better" than what results when interested individuals come together to solve the problems.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics