Spectrum as Property 293
the economist troll writes "An article in this week's Economist argues that overcautious control of electromagnetic spectrum, on the part of regulatory agencies, has resulted in the sheer waste of up to 95% of available spectrum. The article suggests remedies for this sorry state of affairs, including (but not limited to) various methods of privatization. Peppered with history and interesting facts--for instance, did you know only 2% of America's spectrum allocation is determined by auction?--this is one article you won't want to miss."
Waste? (Score:2, Insightful)
Why would anyone assume (Score:5, Insightful)
Its braindead. The RF spectrum is a limited resource, and as such is subject to speculation and fraud -- have we forgotten electricity auctions so quickly?
Article Summary is a bit incomplete. (Score:3, Insightful)
I believe the article supports this thought, that basically it works out that *either* spectrum privatization or open spectrum would be a much better way to allocate spectrum, but the FCC is an organization in search of a purpose and of funding, hence tries to regulate what need not be regulated. Not regulate for any real purpose either, merely regulate.
If we want progress in technology, a good first step would be to get rid of, or radically change, the FCC.
RD
Yes...but .... (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, there are things that can be done to maximize the efficiency with which we use the available specturm. And yes, there are inefficient users of the spectrum (government agencies being among the most egregious). But this article clearly overstates the case by about the same amount that SCO overstates the value of their IP.
Umm...try again (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't be so fscking blind. Comments like that are so high school. Look at all the give-aways BOTH parties toss out to their paid clients. If you believe for one second Bush/Republicans are any worse than the Democrats, you're a bigger fool than they ever hoped for. Bush's FCC commissioner, Junior Powell, obviously is a lacky for large corporate interests. But so were his predecessors under Clinton. Hell, go read the USDA rural broadband money rules (from the bill Democrat Senator Harkin sponsored). Would you be surprised it's just a slush fund to give money back to the incumbant phone companies? Yup. If you ain't one, or ain't established old money, you ain't getting money. Funny how it always works that way.
While we're on the propaganda debunking, here's one for you:
1. Go read MoveOn.org's propeganda, especially all the blathering hatred at Bush for sending US jobs offshore to places like India, China, etc.
2. Then read who MoveOn.org is funded by (George Soros).
3. Then read Soros Investments list of holdings. Wow... it's like a list of all the major guilty offshoring companies! How can this be? Maybe Soros doesn't know?
4. Then read the white papers and recommendations by Soros Holdings on offshoring. HINT: If you are a company he invests in and are NOT making him money, he will move to find better management or dump his investment in you.
This country would rock if it wasn't for all you stupid sheep.
So... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why would anyone assume (Score:5, Insightful)
Whatever. Everything is subject to speculation and fraud. California's electricity deregulation was set up completely wrong. Just like the USSR doesn't prove that socialism is broken, Enron doesn't prove that energy deregulation is broken.
When you have the Cato Institute opposing your "deregulation", you know something is amiss.
The visible spectrum (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, I'll licence them under the GNU's GPL.
TANSTAAFL (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Umm...try again (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Umm...try again (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:If it's been so "overcautious"... (Score:2, Insightful)
The economist article isn't suggesting Thatcher/Pinochet/Reagan style privatisation - which I think of as the government giving out publicly owned utilities to the highest bidder and letting them fleece us for whatever they can get away with. That's roughly what we have now, with heavy government regulation - and the Economist article doesn't even suggest a less-regulated form of that system.
The economist article is advocating a commons approach. Build a bunch of wireless networks, let the spectrum be used by anyone who has equipment sophisticated enough not to interfere with other people's signals, and then everyone can use the spectrum freely for whatever they want. Simultaneously the spectrum becomes more deregulated, and more publicly owned, which must be a good thing, unless you're a telecoms oligopolist.
The last time I read something like this was in an essay by Eben Moglen, who seems to be more of an anarchist than anything else.
Money Makes the World go Round (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Alternitives? (Score:3, Insightful)
FUD
case in point is the water utility system in El Salvador
While that can be an example of a poorly run utility, it offers us no insight whatsoever into privatization without explicitly detailing how it has been privatized.
And there's no incentive for the water company to fix the problems either.
If the water system was truly privatized, the incentive would be that poor service would result in them losing the contract to provide the water service. Far more incentive than a government bureacracy running a utility, where is the incentive to an establishment with no oversight?
UWB vs. allocated spectrum (Score:4, Insightful)
There is no such thing as a free lunch.
Currently, you get a chunk of spectrum and you do whatever with it. If someone interferes, you track that one person down and get them to stop. The size of your spectrum effectively limits the bitrate you can throw across it, assuming consistent power/noise ratios, because after all, if no one is interfering, noise stays consistent.
A UWB transmitter raises the noise floor across all bands ever so slightly, basically proportionately to the bitrate and range the transmitter seeks. Not really a problem for a few transmitters. Also, since people transmit so infrequently, lumping everything together means you're less likely to be affected by the interference.
But if UWB becomes commonplace, and people become greedy for higher bitrates, then keeping the noise floor low for the people still using fixed spectrum allocations will become a forgotten priority. And even if UWB becomes truly universal, if the noise floor gets too high, where do you start to fix it? How do you decide which UWB transmitters are talking too loudly and for too long? If you start to license how much power and time they can use, how do you determine that a given licensee (or an anonymous unlicensed user) is the problem?
Some analogies:
If allocated spectrum is like having slow individual PC's, UWB is like being on a fast mainframe while the admin is on vacation.
If allocated spectrum is like a stain on a shirt, UWB is what the stain looks like after it bleeds to all the other clothes you washed with it.
If allocated spectrum is like a monthly marital spat, UWB is like the loud party the neighbors are always having.
The truth (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually, if you want the truth...
The Truth(TM) is that people will hate anyone they can blame, if they're the kind of people that are conditioned to blame others rather than take care of themselves. America gets much of the greatest hatred because, for a lazy-assed loser, it is the great personification of all the attributes they know they lack.
Call it Ned Flanders Syndrome. He's so damn easy to despise, because he works hard and deep down is probably a better person than you are. It's disgustingly true. You cheer when misfortune falls upon him or his kind. Why else do so many slackers in the US fear and hate bible thumpers or any clean cut, hard working square?
So instead of working your ass of, you blame everyone else. Look at the previous poster's claim about Florida votes not counting. Dude, set the joint down and read a newspaper. Even a liberal one like the New York Times. Does your liberal newspaper not even count? Did you not read that all these newspapers came down and discovered every way they counted (including all the different ways Al Gore demanded, including making military votes not count which I would presume would upset you if you were consistent), Al Gore lost? Every single way, he lost. He lost. He lost. He lost. The great loser lost. Got it yet?
Change the electoral college system constitutionally next time if you don't like the rules. Really, saying this Florida "selected not elected" nonsense is like loudly farting in an elevator. It marks you as a complete loser to any person of reason (even those of us that do not like Bush - an idiot is of no value to thinking people).
But back to hating, the Africans hate the Europeans. Visit Mozembique - if you are Portugeuse, there are places you just do not visit. Visit French Guiana, where France threw its undesirable prisoners for years. If you're French, you do not leave the resort if you're wise (or at least take an escort with plenty of protection). Do you think the Czech like Germans? Go visit the village of Lidice which the Germans wiped off the map in order to show who was boss. Ask any Pole or Balkan nation native how much they love Russians. You want to know hate? Just ask.
And many of these people have legitimate hate. Most of the world has a right to hate Brits, Germans, French and Spainiards for the continued nightmare that lingers from their colonialism. They envy the US, but HATE Europeans.
Alas it is this reason the Europeans wish to remind us all how much Americans are disliked internationally. It allows them to feel superior for a fleeting moment and pretend their colonial tyranny never existed. But then they go and hate Jews or oppress Muslims and the hatred returns.
Re:Alternitives? (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine that, perhaps, not all radio emissions generate money. Imagine that researchers and hams get trampled on by some company because the company has millions to throw at a piece of the spectrum and the researcher/ham doesn't?
Imagine you have a small dinky radio station that broadcasts programs for "friends of the earth" and other ecologists, and Texaco buys out all the spectrum available, and that *oops, too bad* the dinky station can't broadcast anything?
Imagine that. It'd be great wouldn't it? I can't figure out whether you're an idiot, a troll or a convinced republican...
Re:Alternitives? (Score:2, Insightful)
how are you going to make sure that market forces get to reign freely and justly? by just giving the whole pie to the first one to catch it?
*Imagine if you could broadcast anything over the radio without fear of the FCC, as long as your station was popular enough to pay your broadcast bills instead of your fines to the government?* umm. in that world your broadcast would get approximately to your neighbours house before getting interference from the gazillion other guys pumping out to the same frequency. if there's _no_ regulation at all it all gets quite crowded quite fast and and then it's no good for anybody.
you see, actual broadcasting is quite cheap.
Re:Umm...try again (Score:2, Insightful)
My personal thoughts on the matter (as an Icelander). Well: skrewing up the war/massive deficit/gutting important programs/etc. I would definitly like G.W.Bush a lot if I hated America. I really think that it is in the best interest of me, and my country, that America prospers. I can not see G.W.Bush's administration helping in that sense.
This will probebly be modded as a troll, but trust me, it is not my intention to troll. Well with this post at least.
so what should be used instead of a 95% waste? (Score:2, Insightful)
Is there anyone out there who thinks that he'll benefit from more efficient bandwith usage on a personal level?
It would be great if the 2.4 GHz spectrum would be licensed - I'm looking forward to pay fees for any WLAN NIC I buy.
95% of the spectrum are not meant to be for profit, but it's not like 95% of it are being wasted/unused.
The truth is you're talking nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
You do not seem to know what you are talking about. Have you been to any of the places you're mentioning? Could you point to Moçambique on a map without looking it up first?
I'm German. I have been to a number of places in Eastern Europe that have seen the worse side of German occupation, and I have never been met with hate. I've been learning Russian, I've been learning some Hebrew so that I could read Yiddish (basically a dialect of German) and speak to some of the few remaining Jews over there, I did some reading, and then I just went there. People were a bit reserved at first, but after two minutes of talk, we got along very well. When I said I wanted to visit my German occupant grand-uncle's grave on the German military cemetery in Smolensk, we drove there together without them even asking.
My girlfriend is Ukrainian. They are probably the country that got the worst of us in World War 2. Do you think she hates me? We are talking Russian at home because my Ukrainian is too bad, and she gives me 9th-of-May victory postcards as a joke. That's Ukrainian hate for you.
I've spent the better part of the last year in Uzbekistan in the French Research Institute [ifeac.org] in Tashkent where the librarian is Crimean Tatar, born in the 1930s. We got along very well. She told me about how she got to hate Germans between '42 and '44 during German occupation of the Crimea, how Germans threatened to shoot her father before her eyes. After the war, she said, she refused even to look at Germans because of this. After the collapse of 1991, however, she said the five or ten Germans who came to Tashkent for research were young, interested in the local peopulation and their history, they spoke Russian and/or Uzbek and behaved very civilized and friendly in general. She said that these Germans were difficult to hate, and that she was compelled to relinquish her hate for Germans in general and turn it into bitter memories of the German occupants sixty years ago - an entirely different story.
So "all Africans hate the Europeans"? My brother came back a few weeks ago from eight months of work in Ghana where he lived in Accra with a host family, no running water, but the people were fine. Hated because he is European? Definitely not. I know Brits who worked in Nigeria (colony until 1960), Russians who worked in Central Asia (colony until 1917, Soviet Union afterwards) and a Portuguese who worked in Angola (colony until 1975). The memories they brought back were not ones of hate. If you visit Moçambique, there are places that you don't visit when you look like money, not when you're Portuguese. "Legitimate hate"? If that old Jew in Velizh near Smolensk had hated me, I wouldn't have blamed him, but he didn't.
Make an effort to learn people's languages, to show interest in them, their culture and their history. Respect them, look and behave in a respectable way. Stay in places for more than a couple of days, behave like a civilized person and smile when people show you their family pictures. An American who does just that is not going to be hated anywhere in the world, even in the Philippines (US colony until 1946) or Vietnam for that matter. They may not like your country (as an abstract entity) for what it does, what it did or fails to do, but they will not hate you.