Spectrum Policy Reform: Latest Articles

Broadcast to Broadband

Ron Tang — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Although much public attention has focused on the US digital TV transition -- and the resulting reallocation of analog TV channels by auction to wireless carriers -- the US Federal Communications Commission will decide how to reallocate an even larger swath of prime TV band spectrum this year: the unused “white space” between occupied DTV channels. This reallocation of unused spectrum from broadcasting to broadband permits unlicensed access for both fixed and mobile applications.

In 2002, the FCC’s Spectrum Policy Task Force recommended that spectrum efficiency and innovation could be enhanced by reallocating unused and underutilized spectrum for both flexible-use… more

Public Needs to Know How Government Runs Its Airwaves

Articles — Wed, 10 May 2006 03:00:00 -0400

Popularly known as the "public airwaves," spectrum is becoming to the information era what land was to the agricultural era and energy to the industrial era: its defining and most valuable natural resource.

Spectrum allows people and machines to communicate without being connected to wires. Most households have dozens of spectrum using devices, including cordless phones, cellular telephones, garage door remotes, FM radios, satellite TVs, wireless car keys, Bluetooth headphones, invisible fences, and WiFi broadband connections.

Most spectrum is reserved for the federal government, and not for private use. The federal government allocates spectrum, and not unsurprisingly, allocated most for its own… more

Which is More Important for Spectrum Policy: FCC or DOT?

Articles — Sun, 08 Jan 2006 04:00:00 -0500

Which has more influence on spectrum policy: the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) or the various federal, state, and local departments of transportation? Conventional wisdom would place the FCC as the hands down winner. Surely, that continues to be the case. But if current technological trends continue, the departments of transportation, especially the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT), could end up a strong second. We're all familiar with the growing importance of municipal Wi-Fi. But why not highway Wi-Fi? Why should Wi-Fi stop at city boundaries?

That's where the USDOT's planned Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) could come… more

Spectrum Reform an Urgent U.S. Priority

Articles — Wed, 04 Feb 2004 04:00:00 -0500

At the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, one of the hottest topics was WiFi, the technology that uses license-exempt (unlicensed) spectrum to share high-speed wireless Internet connections. In the United States, wireless networking is the fastest-growing segment in telecommunications, while in less developed countries it is seen as the means to leapfrog the lack of a wired infrastructure.

While the WiFi boom has been about short-range mobility, roughly 1,500 wireless Internet service providers (WISPs) already are using unlicensed spectrum to offer high-speed broadband to homes and businesses up to 30 miles from the Internet backbone. This is particularly… more

Intel's Tiny Hope for the Future

Articles — Wed, 31 Dec 2003 04:00:00 -0500

As a department head at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon's R&D arm, David Tennenhouse spent the late 1990s approving or denying funding for hundreds of far-out military programs. One proposal he reviewed, from a research team at UC Berkeley, outlined a concept called smart dust -- fleck-sized wireless sensors intelligent enough to organize themselves into autonomous networks. Dropped from a passing helicopter, the sensors could spy on enemy movements or detect a hidden stash of mustard gas. Tennenhouse was intrigued enough to authorize several hundred thousand dollars in funding. Then he moved on to the next bizarre… more

Up in the Air

Articles — Mon, 01 Sep 2003 03:00:00 -0400

Each economic era has a resource that drives wealth creation. In the agricultural era it was land. In the industrial era it was energy. Today it may be the airwaves, also known as the radio-frequency spectrum -- the most valuable resource of the emerging information economy. Economists estimate that in the United States alone the commercial value of access to it could be more than $750 billion. But it's a resource that's being managed wastefully and inequitably, and what's at stake is the future of technologies that can enable the tremendous economic and social potential… more

A Private Windfall for Public Property

Articles — Tue, 12 Aug 2003 03:00:00 -0400

We're no fans of the attempt by the Federal Communications Commission to relax ownership requirements for TV stations and newspapers, but it would be a shame if the battle between FCC Chairman Michael Powell and Congress on this issue distracted attention from another harmful move being contemplated by the commission.

We're talking about the privatization of the airwaves, a public resource worth hundreds of billions of dollars in both market value and future federal revenue. The contemplated FCC action could result in the biggest special interest windfall at the expense of American taxpayers in history.

The… more

FCC Lets the Telecom Giants Steal from You

Articles — Sun, 07 Apr 2002 05:00:00 -0400

As Congress finalizes its budget resolution for next year, there is one item you won't see: the taking, via eminent domain, of tens of billions of dollars worth of your airwaves rights.

You know what eminent domain is. The government comes and takes away your property for the sake of the "greater good." Usually, citizens fight such takings of their property kicking and screaming. And even if they lose, at least individuals have a constitutional right to compensation.

But there is one big exception: the airwaves. Citizens have not only granted the government free reign to appropriate, via eminent domain,… more

Onward, Christian Moguls

Articles — Tue, 01 Jan 2002 04:00:00 -0500

Vision is a favorite topic of Dr. Garth W. Coonce, a minor Christian-broadcasting magnate from Marion, Illinois. In his monthly newsletter, Partnership, he often muses on the sacred visions that have inspired him to amass 16 television stations, creating a 24-hour network that beams charismatic preachers like Creflo Dollar and Benny Hinn into devout homes. Coonce also likes to share the communiques he still receives from the Almighty, who occasionally instructs him to expand his media holdings into, say, Detroit or greater Boston. "Perhaps it is good that God doesn't give us the big picture in the beginning," he… more

Hey, Give Back Those Airwaves -- Or Pay Up

Articles — Sun, 14 Oct 2001 03:00:00 -0400

On Sept. 17, in the regulatory equivalent of the dead of night, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced a change in policy that amounts to one of the most expensive and unjustifiable grants of corporate welfare in our nation's history. If it isn't reversed, it could set a precedent that will have a long-lasting and damaging effect on our pocketbooks and the U.S. economy.

The FCC's decision ... virtually unreported in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, except by the trade press... gives 21 broadcast companies a green light to sell off a slice of the public airwaves… more

Unclog the Wireless Pipelines

Articles — Fri, 17 Aug 2001 03:00:00 -0400

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 be commonplace. The potential value of these "third generation" (3G) wireless applications is enormous. But there's a catch: The wireless… more

AT&T's First Amendment Problem, and Ours

Articles — Mon, 14 May 2001 03:00:00 -0400

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 tote aclu membership cards or pace their office corridors reciting … more

Political Spectrum

Articles — Fri, 27 Apr 2001 03:00:00 -0400

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 doing what's fair and doing what's economically efficient. Yet … more

Who Owns the Sky?

Articles — Thu, 02 Dec 1999 04:00:00 -0500

Strange as it may sound, during the next several years Congress will need to decide who owns the sky. That decision will determine whether each American citizen becomes a stakeholder -- receiving "rent" from the private use of natural resources -- or merely a tenant, paying out a thousand or more dollars per year in rent to the government or (more likely) to private interests.

Scientists say we are running out of sky. More specifically, we are rapidly depleting the ability of the atmosphere to absorb heat-trapping carbon dioxide, a by-product of burning… more