Wireless Future Program: Latest Publications

A century ago, great fortunes derived from private control over oil, coal and steel -- the essential inputs to mass industrial production. Today the American people collectively own the most valuable resource in the emerging information economy: the airwaves, also known as the electromagnetic spectrum.

Cellphone use is exploding, and wireless Internet access already is available in certain central city and campus locations. Later in this decade, devices providing anywhere, anytime access to e-mail, entertainment, video-conferencing and databases worldwide could… more

When you think "First Amendment martyr," you don't exactly think AT&T. It's a safe bet that few executives at the telecom giant … more

Why are the airwaves -- medium of so much potential commerce -- so poorly managed in the U.S.? The rapidly growing demand for spectrum, or a range of frequencies, is creating tension between … more

Many of the resources that Americans own as a people — forests and minerals under public lands, public information and federally financed research, the broadcast airwaves and public institutions and traditions — are increasingly being taken over by private business interests. These appropriations of common assets are siphoning revenues from the public treasury, shifting ownership and control from public to private interests, and eroding democratic processes and shared cultural values.

In the face of this marketization of public resources, most Americans… more

It is well established that political information shares the characteristics of a public good (Downs 1957; Popkin 1991). People won’t acquire the socially optimal amount of political information because they can’t reap the full benefit of their investment. Recognizing that a well-informed populace is essential to a healthy democracy, the government grants major media substantial public subsidies and special legal protections (Cook 1998). In return, the media take on the costs of monitoring the government that individual members of the… more