Liberating the Electromagnetic Commons
I’ve always been fascinated with radio and it’s many applications: from Rugby’s MSF time signal and long-wave broadcast radio, through HF amateur radio and VHF PMR, to television, wireless networks and satellite navigation systems. Yes, I’m a radio geek.
So it should be of no surprise that I take a keen interest in how our incredibly scarce resource - the electromagnetic spectrum - is managed. And let’s be clear it is our resource as it truly belongs to the people and is not the product of the labours of an organisation or state, despite what some would rather have us believe. But since it is a finite resource and one of such value there is no avoiding the fact that it must be carefully managed. And this comes down at a top level to government agencies such as the FCC in the USA and Ofcom in the UK. Up until now such agencies have largely done a good job of managing this resource and ensuring that spectrum is shared fairly and amongst a diverse range of users with varying needs. Of course for this thankless task they have not gone short of a bob or two, as has been demonstrated most visibly via the auctions for spectrum required for operating a 3G mobile service in the UK, which raised in excess of £22billion.
At the end of 2006 Ofcom consulted on the proposed approach to the award of the digital dividend spectrum, I.e. that which would be freed-up at the cessation of terrestrial analogue TV (470 - 862MHz). Now, this really is prime spectrum. Not only is it a monstrously fat slab of the stuff just short of 400MHz wide, it is also slap bang in the middle of top dollar electromagnetic real estate. These are not feeble microwaves that are severely attenuated by walls, nor are these HF or VHF signals that require awkwardly large aerial systems. This is about spectrum that can not only provide decent radio bearers for communications of respectable bandwidth but that are robust and can travel a fair distance.
Sadly Ofcom’s DDR was far from accessible. And I’d go as far as saying that the documentation they provided in support of people making informed decisions was impenetrable, and I very much doubt that anyone fully digested it unless they were being paid (lots) to do so. I attempted to wade my way though the hundreds of pages of analyst hell and let’s just say that it succeeded it breaking my spirit a little, as perhaps can be seen in my eventual response.
What should be done with the freed-up spectrum? Electron Club associate Michelle Kasprzak blogged about the review quoting my view at the time as made in comments to the EC mailing list. Since then my opinion hasn’t changed much, and if anything I’d just put a stronger emphasis on community networks. The ISM band as allocated for unlicensed use with 802.11 has already in some built-up areas become virtually useless. And we have no capability for long distance links unless you’re prepared to break the law and use high gain antennae and/or RF power amplifiers, and at the detriment of other users as you compound interference problems. And so there is just no getting away from it: we need more spectrum, better spectrum, and quite possibly new ways of managing it. For use by the people and with their interests in mind. I’m not interested in 3G and I really don’t care much for WiMAX, and the shifting sands that are the business models that underpin these technologies. What I want to see is the decentralisation of network provision. I want the principles embodied in Web 2.0 mapped on to the electromagnetic spectrum and the physicality of network access. This is where the next big revolution will occur, and it may well be televised but if so it will be transported across TCP/IP and thanks to a free radio bearer.
I’m pretty confident that the time is right for this revolution and as a possible indicator we have the advent of IEEE802.11y in the USA. And it is quite likely that recent and potentially disruptive technologies such as software-defined radio and cognitive radio will be key enablers. So it is not simply a case of demand but one of definite possibilities. The question now however is what might these new operating models might look like and how can we foster a community empowered to effect such change.
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