About Spectrum Policy Reform
As the world goes wireless, access to the airwaves is becoming the oil of the information age -- with existing licenses valued at over $750 billion and steadily rising. Citizen access to the airwaves -- and the emerging technologies of wireless communication -- increasingly cuts across a variety of critical mass media, broadband, civic and intellectual property issues. As wireless broadband networking becomes ubiquitous, control of the medium will put an indelible stamp on the content of America’s media, democracy, culture and economic equity.
Over the past few years, salient legislative and regulatory decisions concerning affordable and ubiquitous public broadband access, media consolidation, low-power community radio, the DTV transition, the future of public broadcasting and tens of billions of dollars in new public revenue have all connected -- explicitly or implicitly -- to public control over the airwaves. Even as corporate incumbents press to convert their license rights into permanent private property, the future of communication policy may depend on moving instead to an unlicensed, open-access model of spectrum allocation. And as technology allows for pervasive connectivity to high-speed networking, whether those networks are expensive, commercial and closed -- or inexpensive, public and open -- will depend in large measure on citizen access to unlicensed frequencies across the spectrum.
The FCC’s decision last year to allow greater mass media consolidation is just one part of the historic battle over who will control wireless communication in the digital era and with what public obligations, if any. Just as the maneuverings of Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover and the subsequent 1927 Radio Act defined the ownership, control and allocation of the airwaves for the analog era, it is likely that regulatory and legislative actions over the next two-to-four years will shape access to the airwaves for the emerging digital era -- with repercussions for everything from the future of broadcasting to the architecture of the Internet. As communications become increasingly unwired and characterized by the digital convergence of media, assuring the openness and democratic character of our nation’s wireless communications networks could be as important as media diversity and competitive elections.
Since 1927, the government has rigidly “zoned” the airwaves by service (e.g., broadcasting, cell phones, satellites) and awarded temporary and exclusive licenses, mostly at zero cost, in exchange for ill-defined “public interest obligations.” Under the guise of “deregulation,” industry interests and conservative activists are now making a concerted push to capture this windfall as private profit, while terminating the public interest obligations in the process. Privatization of the airwaves would not only extinguish the traditional concept of public interest obligations -- such as diversity, localism, civic access -- but would also preclude the open, unmediated citizen access to broadband wireless networking that will soon be possible as Wi-Fi and other “smart” radio technologies mature.
The Wireless Future Program’s central goals are to reverse this ongoing privatization of the public airwaves and to expand citizen access to an unlicensed spectrum “commons,” thereby facilitating nonprofit community wireless networks and unmediated wireless Internet access. Indeed, our long-run strategy aims to not only maintain democratic control over the airwaves -- as a public resource -- but also to systematically de-license the airwaves and ultimately make wireless communication over the radiofrequency spectrum as free as communications over the acoustic spectrum (speech) and the visible light spectrum (sight and color). While licensing persists, we advocate that commercial users pay fees for exclusive licenses, with the revenue earmarked to finance unfulfilled public interest obligations -- particularly expanded public investment in non-commercial media content, educational innovation and civic access to the airwaves for candidates and communities.
