6 ms·

Maybe I'm naive, but how else would you prevent interference -- or even a nefarious "competitor" from otherwise "using" the frequencies? I know very little abo

Maybe I'm naive, but how else would you prevent interference -- or even a nefarious "competitor" from otherwise "using" the frequencies? I know very little about radio waves/signals, but AFAIK a HTTP-type approach wouldn't work without a lot of up-front collaboration and a free market wouldn't have went that direction either, correct?

logicchains 12y ago
Here's a libertarian argument against government ownership of the airwaves: http://mises.org/journals/jls/20_2/20_2_2.pdf http://mises.org/journals/jls/20_2/20_2_2.pdf. Essentially the idea is that the frequencies would be treated as private property, with the exact nature of this being worked out in the courts. There's precedent for this from 1926, before the US government officially took up ownership of the airwaves, in Tribune Co. v. Oak Leaves Broadcasting Station. "The Chicago Daily Tribune, calling itself WGN... broadcast entertainment as a means of marketing its publication. WGN filed a complaint in state court against another radio station, Oak Leaves, which had begun broadcasting in an adjacent wavelength. WGN claimed that it was necessary to maintain at least a 50-kilocycle separation between stations located within 100 miles of each other. They accused the Oak Leaves station of injuring their lawfully acquired business property. Chancellor Francis S. Wilson decided the case in the tradition of property rights to common resources. His landmark decision, which established homesteading rights in “the ether,” found precedent in western water rights, among other established property traditions. Wilson concluded the court was "compelled to recognize rights which have been acquired by reason of the outlay and expenditure of money and the investment of time. . . . We are of the further opinion that, under the circumstances in this case, priority of time creates a superiority in right." The Congress responded to Oak Leaves instantly. After years of debate and delay on a radio law, both houses jumped to pass a December 1926 resolution stating that no private rights to ether would be recognized as valid, mandating that broadcasters immediately sign waivers relinquishing all rights, and disclaiming any vested interests." *Edit: This ownership wouldn't necessarily extend to _entire spectrums_ as it does in the case of the government selling spectrum. In Tribune Co. v. Oak Leaves Broadcasting Station, for instance, WGN was granted the right to broadcast on a specific frequency within a certain area, which differs immensely from a company being able to 'buy' a series of frequencies from the government such that no other entity in the country may uses this spectrum.
- Retric 12y ago
  The government has sold the cellphone bands to private companies making your point moot.
  - logicchains 12y ago
    Firstly, it's not 'my point'; I was presenting that argument as an answer to the parent post's question of how else interference could be prevented. Secondly, the ownership of entire cellphone bands isn't the only kind of property right over spectrum that could exist. Ownership of entire cellphone bands would actually be somewhat unlikely. For a court following 'Tribune Co. v. Oak Leaves Broadcasting Station' to consider an entire spectrum across the entire nation as property in court, the transmitting organisation would have to show that it was and had been using that entire spectrum to transmit content across every part of the nation. Such a situation would be unlikely, as the organisation would likely have faced competition for spectrum use before it could expand its own spectrum use over the entire country.
    - Retric 12y ago
      First off, by bringing up / presenting "a libertarian argument against government ownership of the airwaves" it becomes your point even if you don't agree with it. Also, so saying their not owned by the government does make your point moot. At a more basic level, before technology improved the high frequency bands where directly worthless but that would not have stopped people squatting them just like with DNS. Secondly, unlike radio cellphones need to broadcast so you need a setup that does not break down as people move around the country thus at least the protocol needs to be national for a given frequency.* Simply giving a free for all to the first people to use a given spectrum is horribly inefficient and effectively just a first come first served auction. *Radio and TV are examples of this where the protocol does not change even if different people are using the same frequency in different areas, but if it's unregulated they could in theory do whatever they want.
      - logicchains 12y ago
danem 12y ago
The economist Ronald Coase wrote a very interesting (and brief) history on the FCC, and makes a compelling argument for the use of auctions to grant rights to spectrums. While long, I think the article is well worth reading. http://thesefragments.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/coase_fcc.pdf http://thesefragments.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/coase_fcc....
ekianjo 12y ago
One way would be to have the infrastructure financed by both the government and the actors, and all actors using the same infrastructure, and therefore competing on prices and services instead of each of them having a separate monopoly on their band. That's exactly how it works for phone lines, and that's where competition worked the best to bring the prices down.
newman314 12y ago
A) the government should have picked GSM or CDMA and mandated that. B) they should have then enacted regulation to permit roaming for "reasonable" access fees. This would have the net effect of not forcing 4 companies to build essentially the same network across the US. Showing to Europe is an eye opening experience. Land somewhere, get a local SIM, pop it in and you are good to go.
- cheald 12y ago
  That would have precluded the development and deployment of LTE.
  - newman314 12y ago
    How so?

logicchains 12y ago

Here's a libertarian argument against government ownership of the airwaves: http://mises.org/journals/jls/20_2/20_2_2.pdf http://mises.org/journals/jls/20_2/20_2_2.pdf. Essentially the idea is that the frequencies would be treated as private property, with the exact nature of this being worked out in the courts. There's precedent for this from 1926, before the US government officially took up ownership of the airwaves, in Tribune Co. v. Oak Leaves Broadcasting Station. "The Chicago Daily Tribune, calling itself WGN... broadcast entertainment as a means of marketing its publication. WGN filed a complaint in state court against another radio station, Oak Leaves, which had begun broadcasting in an adjacent wavelength. WGN claimed that it was necessary to maintain at least a 50-kilocycle separation between stations located within 100 miles of each other. They accused the Oak Leaves station of injuring their lawfully acquired business property. Chancellor Francis S. Wilson decided the case in the tradition of property rights to common resources. His landmark decision, which established homesteading rights in “the ether,” found precedent in western water rights, among other established property traditions. Wilson concluded the court was "compelled to recognize rights which have been acquired by reason of the outlay and expenditure of money and the investment of time. . . . We are of the further opinion that, under the circumstances in this case, priority of time creates a superiority in right." The Congress responded to Oak Leaves instantly. After years of debate and delay on a radio law, both houses jumped to pass a December 1926 resolution stating that no private rights to ether would be recognized as valid, mandating that broadcasters immediately sign waivers relinquishing all rights, and disclaiming any vested interests." *Edit: This ownership wouldn't necessarily extend to _entire spectrums_ as it does in the case of the government selling spectrum. In Tribune Co. v. Oak Leaves Broadcasting Station, for instance, WGN was granted the right to broadcast on a specific frequency within a certain area, which differs immensely from a company being able to 'buy' a series of frequencies from the government such that no other entity in the country may uses this spectrum.

Retric 12y ago
The government has sold the cellphone bands to private companies making your point moot.
- logicchains 12y ago
  Firstly, it's not 'my point'; I was presenting that argument as an answer to the parent post's question of how else interference could be prevented. Secondly, the ownership of entire cellphone bands isn't the only kind of property right over spectrum that could exist. Ownership of entire cellphone bands would actually be somewhat unlikely. For a court following 'Tribune Co. v. Oak Leaves Broadcasting Station' to consider an entire spectrum across the entire nation as property in court, the transmitting organisation would have to show that it was and had been using that entire spectrum to transmit content across every part of the nation. Such a situation would be unlikely, as the organisation would likely have faced competition for spectrum use before it could expand its own spectrum use over the entire country.
  - Retric 12y ago
    First off, by bringing up / presenting "a libertarian argument against government ownership of the airwaves" it becomes your point even if you don't agree with it. Also, so saying their not owned by the government does make your point moot. At a more basic level, before technology improved the high frequency bands where directly worthless but that would not have stopped people squatting them just like with DNS. Secondly, unlike radio cellphones need to broadcast so you need a setup that does not break down as people move around the country thus at least the protocol needs to be national for a given frequency.* Simply giving a free for all to the first people to use a given spectrum is horribly inefficient and effectively just a first come first served auction. *Radio and TV are examples of this where the protocol does not change even if different people are using the same frequency in different areas, but if it's unregulated they could in theory do whatever they want.
    - logicchains 12y ago

danem 12y ago

The economist Ronald Coase wrote a very interesting (and brief) history on the FCC, and makes a compelling argument for the use of auctions to grant rights to spectrums. While long, I think the article is well worth reading. http://thesefragments.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/coase_fcc.pdf http://thesefragments.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/coase_fcc....

ekianjo 12y ago

One way would be to have the infrastructure financed by both the government and the actors, and all actors using the same infrastructure, and therefore competing on prices and services instead of each of them having a separate monopoly on their band. That's exactly how it works for phone lines, and that's where competition worked the best to bring the prices down.

newman314 12y ago

A) the government should have picked GSM or CDMA and mandated that. B) they should have then enacted regulation to permit roaming for "reasonable" access fees. This would have the net effect of not forcing 4 companies to build essentially the same network across the US. Showing to Europe is an eye opening experience. Land somewhere, get a local SIM, pop it in and you are good to go.

cheald 12y ago
That would have precluded the development and deployment of LTE.
- newman314 12y ago
  How so?