Spectrum policy

The Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program held its annual Aspen Institute Roundtable on Spectrum Policy (AIRS) in Nov. 2009 and published its report on the session. Blair Levin, executive director of the Omnibus Broadband Initiative, or National Broadband Plan, of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), was the keynote speaker.

The conference discussion reached nine conclusions, among them:

• Given the current network architecture, the recent estimates of significantly expanded future spectrum requirements to satisfy exponential growth in demand may be reasonable.
  
  
• It is important to consider the extent to which spectrum reallocation from broadcasters, other private sector users and the federal government is a legitimate policy response to the growth in wireless demand, but it will not, by itself, satisfy wireless demand.
  
  
• Market-based approaches such as flexible licenses and license auctions have the potential to free some spectrum to respond to the growth in wireless demand, but not nearly enough to provide what will be required.
  
  
• Demand for wireless spectrum can be restrained by various kinds of usage sensitive pricing that charges heavy users for the additional demands they put on wireless systems, but political and marketplace resistance might prevent the full use of this marketplace response to the growth in wireless demand.

The report covers: Demand for wireless broadband service, Demand for wireless spectrum, Inventory, Spectrum reallocation, Receiver standards, Shared use, Secondary markets, Pricing, Network architecture, and Developments after the conference.


Rethinking Spectrum Policy: A Fiber Intensive Wireless Architecture (pdf, 66pp/380kB), March 2010