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Amateur and unlicensed spectrum allocations have also grown over time as technology has allowed for tighter bandpass filtering and more efficient digital transm

Amateur and unlicensed spectrum allocations have also grown over time as technology has allowed for tighter bandpass filtering and more efficient digital transmission…but we haven’t seen an amateur resurgence, and mesh networks are actually dying off. Nobody cares. And legal access to experiment is already free and available to everybody. It’s called a Special Temporary Authorization. Corporations use them all of the time for various purposes, including experimental applications. Citizens are allowed to apply for them too, but nobody ever does. I don’t really care about hypothetical future scenarios that will never exist. Unlicensed and amateur spectrum has its place, but it’s not exactly deserving of any more bandwidth than it already has.

user3939382 4y ago
> hypothetical future scenarios Many of the very real, tangible rights and benefits we now enjoy started out as hypothetical future scenarios. > Special Temporary Authorization > Citizens are allowed to apply for them too, but nobody ever does It's easy, you just need to deal with the government and fill out paperwork for a permit and get it approved. Maybe because again, the resources of these megacorporations and an individual in the general case are no comparison. Big companies have staff attorneys and compliance departments for whom the marginal cost for discovering these processes and doing paperwork like this is absolutely nothing relative to an individual. There are all kinds of things you can do with special permits and licenses and they are by that process guaranteed not to be popular with the general public, that goes for anything. > mesh networks are actually dying off. Nobody cares. It's niche right now because it's not easy for the average person to participate in and industry is deadset against it. The telecoms don't even want municipalities to have ISPs let alone individuals. > not exactly deserving of any more bandwidth than it already has What did these companies do to deserve almost all of our spectrum, capture our democratic processes with political bribes? You think Verizon is in the position they are because they "deserve" it?
- darksaints 4y ago
  > What did these companies do to deserve almost all of our spectrum They paid for that spectrum, and they fulfilled licensing commitments to built a network that hundreds of millions of people can access and use. The FCC has special licensing terms and incentive programs for small businesses, non-profit organizations, and individuals. It actually is dead simple, and it’s cheap or free too. Their only ask is that is that the licensee serve the public interest and cover the population with services that they can actually use. This is the exact reason why mega corporations look like they’re preferred over the small players: the small players can’t fulfill that commitment. The EBS spectrum, which is now used so profitably by Sprint/T-Mobile, was given away for free to academic institutions. They initially intended for it to be used for academic television, but most of those channels ended up not being used, so they gave them free reign over what to do with it. Unburdened from restrictions on how to use the spectrum, and what did they do with that freedom? They leased it to Sprint for the sweet sweet cash payout. As far as I can tell, there isn’t a single academic institution using that precious midband spectrum for a mesh network. So again, the premise here is simple: all you have to do is build something that people use. If you can do that better than a mega corporation, and at low costs to the end users, you will almost certainly have the favor of the FCC. They’ll fucking give you spectrum for free. So just do it already.

user3939382 4y ago

> hypothetical future scenarios Many of the very real, tangible rights and benefits we now enjoy started out as hypothetical future scenarios. > Special Temporary Authorization > Citizens are allowed to apply for them too, but nobody ever does It's easy, you just need to deal with the government and fill out paperwork for a permit and get it approved. Maybe because again, the resources of these megacorporations and an individual in the general case are no comparison. Big companies have staff attorneys and compliance departments for whom the marginal cost for discovering these processes and doing paperwork like this is absolutely nothing relative to an individual. There are all kinds of things you can do with special permits and licenses and they are by that process guaranteed not to be popular with the general public, that goes for anything. > mesh networks are actually dying off. Nobody cares. It's niche right now because it's not easy for the average person to participate in and industry is deadset against it. The telecoms don't even want municipalities to have ISPs let alone individuals. > not exactly deserving of any more bandwidth than it already has What did these companies do to deserve almost all of our spectrum, capture our democratic processes with political bribes? You think Verizon is in the position they are because they "deserve" it?

darksaints 4y ago
> What did these companies do to deserve almost all of our spectrum They paid for that spectrum, and they fulfilled licensing commitments to built a network that hundreds of millions of people can access and use. The FCC has special licensing terms and incentive programs for small businesses, non-profit organizations, and individuals. It actually is dead simple, and it’s cheap or free too. Their only ask is that is that the licensee serve the public interest and cover the population with services that they can actually use. This is the exact reason why mega corporations look like they’re preferred over the small players: the small players can’t fulfill that commitment. The EBS spectrum, which is now used so profitably by Sprint/T-Mobile, was given away for free to academic institutions. They initially intended for it to be used for academic television, but most of those channels ended up not being used, so they gave them free reign over what to do with it. Unburdened from restrictions on how to use the spectrum, and what did they do with that freedom? They leased it to Sprint for the sweet sweet cash payout. As far as I can tell, there isn’t a single academic institution using that precious midband spectrum for a mesh network. So again, the premise here is simple: all you have to do is build something that people use. If you can do that better than a mega corporation, and at low costs to the end users, you will almost certainly have the favor of the FCC. They’ll fucking give you spectrum for free. So just do it already.