Spectrum management
Spectrum management is the process of regulating the use of radio frequencies to promote efficient use and gain a net social benefit.
[1] The term radio spectrum typically refers to the full frequency range from 1 Hz to 3000 GHz (3 THz) that may be used for wireless communication.
President Obama made shared spectrum the policy of the United States on 14 June 2013,[3] following recommendations from the President's Council of Advisors for Science and Technology (PCAST) which advocated the sharing of (uncleared) federal radio spectrum when unused at a place and time provided it does not pose undue risks.
[citation needed] Goals of spectrum management include: rationalize and optimize the use of the RF spectrum; avoid and solve interference; design short and long range frequency allocations; advance the introduction of new wireless technologies; coordinate wireless communications with neighbours and other administrations.
Radio spectrum items which need to be nationally regulated: frequency allocation for various radio services, assignment of license and RF to transmitting stations, type approval of equipment (for countries out of the European Union), fee collection, notifying ITU for the Master International Frequency Register (MIFR), coordination with neighbour countries (as there are no borders to the radio waves), external relations toward regional commissions (such as CEPT in Europe, CITEL in America) and toward ITU.
[9] The allocation decisions are often static in temporal and spatial dimensions, meaning that they are valid for extended periods of time (usually decades) and for large geographical regions (country wide).
The usage is often set to be exclusive; each band is dedicated to a single provider, thus maintaining interference free communication.
The command and control management model dates back to initial days of wireless communications, when the technologies employed required interference-free mediums for achieving acceptable quality.
In terms of profitability, public interest programs, for example, over-the-air television, may not be as attractive as commercial ones in the provider perspective, but they are nevertheless beneficial for the society.
A secondary market has been allowed to emerge and licensees are encouraged to lease use of the spectrum to third parties temporarily.
Making licenses transferable is an important attempt by the FCC to create incentives for broadcasters to share unused spectrum.
This artificial "access limitation"-based scarcity is often considered to result from the static and rigid nature of the command and control governance regime.
Interested parties have started to consider possible improvements in the governance regime by relaxing the constraints on spectrum access.
In such a scenario, it asserts that even though the contribution of each "bad actor" may be minute, when the results of these actions are combined the resource could be degraded to the point of uselessness.
Ronald Coase, a Nobel Prize–winning economist, championed the idea of auctioning off spectrum rights as a superior alternative to the status quo in 1959.
[16] Coase argued that, though initial distributions may affect matters, property rights in a frequency will lead to the most efficient usage thereof.
[17][18] The spectrum property rights model is often critiqued for potentially leading to artificial scarcity and the hold-up problem.
When a regulatory regime changes to the property model, the original merit and cause guidelines for incumbent and grandfathered users are often removed.
Its rules are found in the NTIA Manual of Regulations and Procedures for Federal Radio Frequency Management".
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) manages and regulates all domestic non-federal spectrum use (47 USC 301).
The Plenipotentiary Conference is the top policy-making body of the ITU, meeting every four years in order to set the Union's general policies.
