FCC Should Stop Worrying and Learn to Love Spectrum Market: View
By the Editors Dec 15, 2011
Julius Genachowski, the Federal Communications Commission chairman, thinks the end is near. His evangelizing isnât spiritual but digital: The economy of the future depends on smartphones, tablet computers and other wireless devices, and yet the U.S. faces a crippling spectrum shortage, he says.
I keep hearing this.
But the problem is that the spectrum is a finite resource. If there is a true shortage of spectrum, nothing spectrum management can do will remedy this.
You want spectrum, there's plenty available in the >100 GHz that nobody is using. What? Don't like the propagation characteristics? Sorry about that. That's what is there.
You can reallocate use, but you can't just wave your hands and create bandwidth out of nowhere, and that is what politicians seem to expect the FCC to do.
--scott
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It is interesting to see these issues where a finite resource that is (usually) mismanaged by humans finally reaches the inevitable crunch point where we just can't keep going on with the proverbial "business as usual". This sort of thing is increasing all over the place with things like arable land, water resources and energy sources, but for some reason we believe that there is always some way to make the finite continue on.
Do we have any examples of successful political fixes for issues like this that the pollies can use to counter those who keep pointing out that the definition of finite means that that there is a limit?
Perhaps the spectrum "fix" will be along more traditional lines, take away the resources from those with lesser power or voice and hand it over to the big-money boys who almost always seem to get what they want?
Just remember, if convenient spectrum becomes so critical to the national economy - or a matter of "national security" - then there won't be much that can stop such a valuable resource being allocated to those who are so important to both of these areas.
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