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Does OSS Make The FCC Irrelevant?
JordanL writes "Daniel Fisher over at Forbes.com wonders whether or not OSS makes the FCC irrelevant. From the article: 'The agency might have made sense in the 1920s, Moglen says, when it was formed to assign specific frequencies to broadcasters so they wouldnt try to drown each other out by cranking up the transmitter power. But a new generation of intelligent radios, combined with equally clever computer networks, is making it possible for anybody to use the airwaves without interfering with anybody else.'"
Yeah right. If I go by your same logic and just for the sake of argument let us also assume that Napster was Open Source. Do you really think RIAA still wouldn't have crushed it? First Amendment my ass. Our "friendly" (and genius) lawmakers will find a loophole or make a law that First Amendment will violate. Yup the greenback has a voice, and it is fuckin' loud!
If we were a nation of boy scouts that might work, but experience in wireless band usage in the unlicensed ranges indicates this is not the case
Unlicensed wireless spectrum in Omaha, Nebraska, population 500k, is managed by a mixture of microwave design and troubleshooting, back stabbing, jamming with amateur gear, intrusions into ISP's networks, 'uncoordinated' adjustments of competitor's antennas and radios in shared facilities, lawsuits, character assassination, 'testing' of heavily amplified frequency hopping products, and occasional play on the part of aircrews on RC-135 Rivet Joints flying out of Offutt AFB.
Never in a million billion zillion years would the licensed band network operators here tolerate that sort of conduct. Eben needs to stick to software licenses and leave radio physics alone
I am very easy to get along with, but I don't have time to waste being nice to people who are being stupid. -Theo
What would prevent the kiddie down the street from buying a 1000 watt transmitter, radiating himself and his neighbors, overmodulating his signal and washing out half the FM radio spectrum within a nearby radius?
There is no way to mandate computer networked transmitters, or to enforce things from the transmitter side.
The fcc handles figuring out land topology, power, assignments, and a myriad other factors involved in assigning a frequency and maximum power- for the entire country's radio space over several ghz of spectrum.
What does open source really have to do with this anyway? Sure, open source could theoretically implement the system he talks about, but the post is more about the supposed irrelevance of the fcc and is using OSS as a buzzword to generate hype.
But we ain't there yet- and given my history with used radios and TVs, and the current hassle over HDTV broadcast, I'd say we're at least 40, perhaps 50 years away from this becoming nationwide reality; and at least 100 years before it becomes worldwide reality.
Do you really think so? I mean, when I bought my first computer 10 years ago, 56k was blazing fast. And wireless was unheard of (at least beyond 5 foot, PDA to PDA transmissions). Now Wireless is much more commonplace, and the bandwidth is rising rapidly. I doubt it'll take 50 years. Given the rate at which technology now moves, we could see enough bandwidth wirelessly all over major markets (read: big cities) within 15 years, and maybe 25 for it to go everywhere. Since the amount of bandwidth you need is roughly proportional to population, it's easier to cover rural areas adequately. With radio, signal strength needs to be based on terrain, since an area needs a certain amount of signal regardless of whether it is populated or not.
You need the FCC to assign certain bandwidths to certain types and standards of communication, but you no longer need the FCC to assign a specific bandwidth to a specific station, thereby limiting stations.
It would be totally possible to have some sort of digital packet broadcast system where stations need a specific frequency band, that would allow tens of thousands of radio stations in an area instead of 5 or 10. The primary purpose of the FCC regulation of radio nowadays is to maintain a limited amount of radio stations, thereby sustaining the profit model of radio. (After all, price is set by supply and demand. If you increase the supply of radio broadcasts, but the demand for radio broadcasts stays the same, the cost of advertising on radio will go down!)