It seems to be pretty important to figure out whether Kevin Werbach, David Reed, Bob Frankston, and company are right...
Werbach Open Spectrum Paper
Spectrum Series Working Paper #6 October 2002
Open Spectrum: The New Wireless Paradigm
By Kevin Werbach
Almost everything you think you know about spectrum is wrong.
For nearly a century, radio
frequency spectrum has been treated as a scarce resource that the government
must parcel out through exclusive licenses. Spectrum licensing brought us radio,
television, cellular telephones and vital public safety services. Along the
way, the licensing model became an unquestioned paradigm, pervading our views.
We simply can’t imagine doing anything else.
The assumptions underlying
the dominant paradigm for spectrum management no longer hold. Today’s digital
technologies are smart enough to distinguish between signals, allowing users
to share the airwaves without exclusive licensing. Instead of treating spectrum
as a scarce physical resource, we could make it available to all as a commons,
an approach known as “open spectrum.” Open spectrum would allow for more efficient
and creative use of the precious resource of the airwaves. It could enable innovative
services, reduce prices, foster competition, create new business opportunities,
and bring our communications policies in line with our democratic ideals.
Despite its radical implications,
open spectrum can coexist with traditional exclusive licensing. There are two
mechanisms to facilitate spectrum sharing: unlicensed parks and underlay. The
first involves familiar allocated frequency bands, but with no user given the
exclusive right to transmit. A very limited set of frequencies have already
been designated for unlicensed consumer devices, such as cordless phones and
wireless local area networks, but more is needed. The second approach allows
unlicensed users to coexist in licensed bands, by making their signals invisible
and non-intrusive to other users. Both open spectrum approaches have great value,
with the specifics depending on how technology and markets develop. Both should
be encouraged. The risks are minimal, while the potential benefits are extraordinary.
If the US Government wants
to put in place the most pro-innovation, pro-investment, deregulatory, and democratic
spectrum policy regime, it should do everything possible to promote open spectrum.
Specifically, Congress and the FCC should take the following four steps:
• Develop rules to foster more effective cooperation among unlicensed users
• Set aside more spectrum for unlicensed uses
• Eliminate restrictions on non-intrusive underlay techniques across licensed
bands
• Promote experimentation and research in unlicensed wireless technology
We can glimpse the possibilities of open spectrum
in existing unlicensed bands. While most frequencies are licensed exclusively,
a handful are open for anyone to transmit within technical
parameters such as power limits.
[1] The unlicensed bands are limited, congested, and devoid
of any interference protection. Indeed, the most widely used, at 2.4 GHz, is
so filled with devices such as microwave ovens, cordless telephones, and baby
monitors that it is known as the “junk band.” Yet this is the site of the most
explosive phenomenon in the wireless world: WiFi.
WiFi
(IEEE 802.11) is a protocol for unlicensed wireless local area networks, allowing
high-speed data connections anywhere within a few hundred feed of an access
point. WiFi deployments are growing at fantastic
rates, doubling in the last year. A market that did not exist three years ago
now generates well over a billion dollars annually, continuing to expand despite
a severe technology recession. There are thousands of public access points in
the US,
and hundreds of thousands more in homes and businesses. Several million laptops
are equipped with WiFi cards, and most laptop vendors
are building WiFi into their newer models. Investment
and innovation run rampant. Venture-backed startups are springing up to improve
WiFi technology and apply it to new markets, such
as residential broadband access.