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The FBI - IFCC Cyber Crime Unit fights spectrum of cyber crime matters, include online fraud in its many forms including intellectual..... |
Spectrum should be treated as a scarce resource and a private good. It is too risky to do otherwise.
Policy Recommendations:
Open spectrum is not inevitable. Technologies now available or under development will lay the groundwork for a radically more open and more efficient wireless environment, but without the right policy framework, those technologies may never see the light of day. If the US wants to enjoy the benefits of open spectrum, it must take steps to facilitate it.
Despite the promise of open spectrum, there are many threats to the continued growth of unlicensed wireless. Open spectrum profoundly threatens the status quo. It represents a new form of potential competition for existing wireless services, and for wired services as well. Wireless operators facing new competition from unlicensed devices may similarly rely on scare tactics and legal maneuvers to prevent unlicensed services from encroaching on their markets.
If the US government were to give spectrum licensees full ownership rights, it would significantly decrease the likelihood that spectrum would be available for unlicensed uses. Giving spectrum licensees greater flexibility or opportunities to engage in secondary market transactions may make sense. The US government should develop rules to foster more effective cooperation among unlicensed users.
BENEFIT OF SPECTRUM:
Faulhadber and Farber (2002) state that all spectrum should be converted to property, and sold in a market like any other private good. They believe that government can buy the spectrum it would like to use, including that used for emergency or essential services. They believe that the property-rights regime would lead spectrum to be used by those who value it most. The spectrum that is available in market can be treated like any other property - bought, sold, aggregated or divided as required and desired by the owner. The believe that spectrum is not infinitely available, and hence, since it is scarce resource, must be allocated by a market.
The benefits of private spectrum by allowing for innovation, and the proliferation of new devices and services using the wireless medium - taking full advantage of the benefits of the private spectrum, while allowing them about a possible change if and when a failure does occur. Prior knowledge would encourage investment and foster the growth of networks while ensuring that when the system does fail, a pre-determined and publicly known response will follow. This will allow for system designers and service providers and users to be prepared for such a change.
BCC's VIEWS:
The BBC acknowledges that spectrum is a scarce resource and should therefore be allocated and used efficiently. The BBC has an interest in ensuring efficiency in its own use of spectrum, and over many years has invested time, effort and resources to deliver greater efficiency. Any assessment of the value which spectrum might have to broadcasters themselves must take into account the opportunities broadcasters have to generate financial returns from its use, and the obligations and restrictions which the Government attaches to the use of that spectrum.
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 of anywhere, anytime access to high-speed data networking.
The free society depends on the market to allocate benefits, since it lacks the bureaucratic allocation mechanism of the status society. Thus, any scarce resource should be private property, potentially on the market, rather than common property. The latter should be restricted to things that can be used freely by everyone, subject to protective rules and conventions.
The goal is to encourage mobile services and head off a shortage of available airwaves.
IF wireless networks proliferate as fast as many researchers predict, is it possible for the airwaves to become overloaded? And one big wireless traffic jam?
Much of the focus is on the 2.4-gigahertz band of the radio spectrum. The band, which stretches from 2.4 to 2.483 gigahertz, has become more and more crowded in the past few years.
In the past decade, an explosion in the number of wireless devices -- cellular telephones, satellite television dishes and pagers, to name just a few -- has led to crowded airwaves.
Decisions about how to use the spectrum hinge on practical questions -- what it is possible to do -- as well as on public policy, international regulations and economics, Mr. Schroeder said.
Spectrum management remains difficult. One strain on the system is unlicensed use.
The advent of new wireless technologies has increased demand for space on the frequency spectrum. The demand led the government to begin holding auctions for the space in 1994. Critics claim the auctions make frequencies available to the rich, not to those who need them but cannot afford them.
But when any scarce resource is allocated, there are hound to be losers. Critics of the auction system say it takes spectrum away from the poor and gives it to the rich.
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How Culture Become Property and What We're Going to Do About It - University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, University Program in Cultural Studies, November 8, 2001. |
