EU Calls for Unified Approach to Allocating "White Space" Spectrum

judgecorp writes "The European Union has proposed that operators should share their spectrum, to make better use of it. The European authorities want to go beyond the 'white space' re-use of geographic gaps in spectrum, acknowledging that intelligent radio systems can now avoid interference. The EU wants operators to allow other players onto their licensed spectrum with short range equipment, in exchange for help building wireless infrastructure and creating more mobile data capacity"

Comments

more capacity for whom

[girlintraining]

Good: Yay! The EU wants to free up spectrum for mobile applications...but for who?
Bad: Not you.
Worse: Not them either.
Oh shit: The same people who are fucking you over a barrel in the mobile broadband arena now.

This is exactly something that should be regulated

[knapkin]

Yes, using whitespace well is good. The problems start when a cognitive radio malfunctions and interferes with licensed and in use spectrum.

The crux of sharing spectrum (as any down to earth shared whitespace proponent will tell you) has to do with the rules the cognitive radios use. Liken these to rules of the road or right of way. Traffic on the roads and freeways works (for the most part) because of a common understanding of the rules that govern right of way. These rules are determined by the government (in some cases better than others, try figuring out when you can do a u-turn in a given city).

The point is that while in theory, sharing unused white space is great, the devil is in how you share it. Without rules and guidelines defining this sharing of whitespace will simply be a property grab.

Think radios positioned to transmit constantly when they don't have actual network traffic. Think about radios that start bombing unused whitespace to claim it for a telco as soon as it goes out of use. Defining the rules of the road is a good thing. The EU may do a bad job of this, but it still needs to be done before that grand idea of free spectrum can even begin to have a hope of being realized.

The one true way to allocate white space

[yuje]

4 space indents, no tabstops, and opening braces on the same line as method declaration.

Re:The one true way to allocate white space

[andyn]

4 space indents, no tabstops

4 is wasteful, only two is needed an gives a nice alignment with the above code.

That's why you both ought to be using tabstops after all. It lets everyone use the indentation level they are most comfortable with.

If you worry about crossing the magical 80 character column width limit, don't. Those folks who care about it are the same who use 2 space indentation anyway.

Re:This is exactly something that should be regula

[Sulphur]

The crux of sharing spectrum (as any down to earth shared whitespace proponent will tell you) has to do with the rules the cognitive radios use. Liken these to rules of the road or right of way. Traffic on the roads and freeways works (for the most part) because of a common understanding of the rules that govern right of way. These rules are determined by the government (in some cases better than others, try figuring out when you can do a u-turn in a given city).

Imagine that one decided that traffic was on the wrong side of the road. Someone would suggest, "Lets phase it in, trucks first."

Pirate radio has been doing it for decades

[Viol8]

Unfortunately they don't always get it right and end up interfering with legit stations. Probably because back in the day most pirates were run by trained engineers and people who knew what they were doing whereas now its usually any old bunch of halfwit punks who have sufficient IQ to but an FM transmitter off ebay and plug it in.