MESSAGE
| DATE | 2004-02-07 |
| FROM | Ruben I Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [hangout] Fwd: [nycwireless] NYCwireless spectrum policy activities [anthony@nycwireless.net]
|
On 2004.02.06 13:32 Anthony Townsend wrote:
NYCwireless is starting to get involved in voicing the needs of
grassroots wireless communities at the FCC through several spectrum
policy proceedings. we are working actively with the New America
Foundation.
below is an interesting article by our partner at New America
anyone who wants to learn more about this project, i'll host a
discussion group during break out sessions at the February meeting. we
are also interested in spectrum policy in other countries for people
with int'l interests.
-----
from The Hill
http://www.thehill.com/news/020404/ss_calabrese.aspx
Spectrum reform an urgent U.S. priority
As the world goes wireless, access problems arise
By Michael Calabrese
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 important for rural areas, where wired connections are
unavailable or unaffordable.
As the world goes wireless, demand for access to the airwaves will
explode. Big retailers and manufacturers are investing millions to
replace bar-coding with wireless inventory controls. And Intel is
planning for a future in which unlicensed devices are cheap and
ubiquitous, with dozens and possibly hundreds of them scattered around
houses in beehive-like wireless networks.
We can try to achieve this future goal of pervasive connectivity by
relying on a pair of regulated monopolies — one cable, one copper — to
trench fiber into every home and small business. We also could wait for
national wireless carriers to blanket the nation with the thick quilt
of cell towers.
Alternatively, we can spread our bets by promoting competition in the
last-mile by opening more spectrum to thousands of entrepreneurial
WISPs and community-access networks that are already offering last-mile
connections on unlicensed frequencies.
As usual, our political institutions lag far behind technological
change. The conventional wisdom is that we suffer from a severe
shortage of spectrum. In reality, even the prime low frequencies that
pass easily through walls, trees and weather are barely used at all.
Over downtown D.C., near the White House, we found that 60 to 80
percent of the prime frequencies are barely in use.
What’s scarce is government permission to access the airwaves. The
most useful spectrum has all been allocated on an exclusive basis to
broadcasting, the military and other services that now need only a
fraction of the frequencies they license thanks to digital
technologies.
All sides of the spectrum debate agree that the FCC’s outdated
command-and-control approach — based on rigid zoning by service and
zero cost licensing — has created artificial scarcity, stifling
competition, slowing innovation and restricting citizen access to the
airwaves.
While delicensing frequencies and relying on markets for technologies
like WiFi would represent true deregulation, the predominant view at
the FCC is that the most practical solution is to simply grant spectrum
incumbents complete and permanent control over the frequencies they now
borrow. Today’s licenses would become de facto property.
The FCC is already moving in this direction. Last May, the commission
decided to facilitate secondary markets for spectrum that allow firms,
whether or not they paid for licenses, to more easily sell or sublease
underused spectrum.
The commission is also proposing a so-called “two-sided auction” that
would allow incumbent licensees to pocket auction revenues when the FCC
seeks to clear a band for new uses. According to senior FCC staff, the
logic is that broadcasters and other licensees have so much political
clout that the only practical way to reduce scarcity is to bribe them
to bring their spectrum to market.
This approach to spectrum flexibility transfers a massive and
unnecessary windfall to lucky incumbents that never paid a nickel for
their now-scarce licenses. In addition to costing billions at a time of
ballooning budget deficits, it is being pursued despite the fact that
Congress explicitly rejected this sort of giveaway when it passed
emergency legislation in June, 2002 canceling auctions for TV Channels
60 to 69.
A longer-term problem is that freezing the old zoning system into
permanent property rights will forestall emerging “smart” radio
technologies that could dynamically share today’s underutilized
spectrum space. Exclusive ownership of frequencies turns sharing into
“trespassing” and allows licensees to demand payment for access to
their airwaves.
Spectrum deregulation can be achieved without costly giveaways and
without strangling unlicensed technologies that promise more affordable
and ubiquitous high-speed broadband.
Strange as it may sound, government should both lease spectrum and
give it away.
By leasing, I mean that licensees should be given nearly complete
flexibility, but in exchange for paying a modest annual user fee, or
royalty, as we do with other public resources. While spectrum capacity
may be plentiful, exclusive government licenses to operate profitable
services like broadcasting remain scarce. Congress adopted this
approach in 1996 when it gave broadcasters the flexibility to use their
new DTV channel to sell ancillary services, but only in exchange for a
fee the FCC set at 5 percent of gross revenue.
By giving away, I mean that we need a substantial reallocation of
wasted spectrum capacity to shared, unlicensed access. Rather than
focus on private markets to sell spectrum access, expanding free and
shared access to the airwaves can encourage markets for new generations
of WiFi equipment and mitigate spectrum scarcity.
Some bands can be reallocated for unlicensed wireless broadband on a
primary basis, while others can be opened for opportunistic sharing by
“smart” devices that hop frequencies and avoid harmful interference
with existing services. This year the FCC will be considering to what
degree analog TV channels 52-69 can be opened for unlicensed sharing
since they are due to be returned once the DTV transition is complete.
Just as public highways have proved far more efficient than relying
exclusively on toll roads or fixed-line railroads, meshed networks of
cognitive radios can share the airwaves based on basic “rules of the
road.” That is the “commons” model: spectrum as a common carrier that
is, thankfully, already owned by the public.
Calabrese is vice president and director of spectrum policy at the New
America Foundation.
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