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Technology Stocks : The *NEW* Frank Coluccio Technology Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (7500)	7/2/2004 3:48:05 PM
From: axial	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 46821

Hi Frank - Thanks for that paper. What I think is implicit in comments about The Tragedy of The Commons and spectrum, is that even if novelty (presently-low adoption) and technology (ie., innovative and efficient usage) straight-arms scarcity for a while, at some point "free" spectrum will be over-saturated. It's just a question of time. Not to trivialize the matter, but this millenium is the one where we begin to grapple with the presence - not the possibility - of all kinds of Malthusian realities. Introduction of transaction costs, metering, or some other market mechanism - seems inevitable if presently "free" spectrum is to be usable, in future. But the resource - relatively unused spectrum - was there, and the market decided to use it. There was no justification for not doing so (said with an eye to re-apportioning spectrum as a whole). Technology will assist in exploiting the resource, and in using it efficiently. In the end, the resource will have to be managed. What surprises me about The New Millenium is how much faster the future began to arrive.>g< Jim

To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (7500)	7/3/2004 8:57:02 AM
From: Peter Ecclesine	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 46821

Hi Frank, >>While the new technology opens up new opportunities for efficient use of spectrum, using either of these technologies appears to violate the license rights of current licensees<< The Property Right vs Law of the Sea discussion in the June-August Cook Report (p134-153) shows the irrelevance of land as property as a model for regulating spectrum. If any proof was needed, the FCC UWB ruling on Feb 14, 2002 showed that 'license rights' may be altered by the government at any time. >>Central to the choice between a property right regime and a commons regime are (i) scarcity and (ii) transaction costs<< There are other equally valid choices that are not being discussed in the spectrum debate. One is path licensing (70/80/90 GHz NPRM WT 02-146), where a path from point A to point B is protected by precalculating whether a new licensed path would interfere Another is cognitive radios with protective logic. At a DARPA XG [http://www.darpa.mil/ato/programs/xg/overview.htm] meeting this week, we discussed regulating software radios by mandating they return to a 'safe operating mode' if they are not updated periodically. This allows exploration of new coexistence regimes, without forcing the primary license holders to freeze their own technology developments (e.g. radars continue to evolve). petere

To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (7500)	7/3/2004 9:07:58 AM
From: Peter Ecclesine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 46821

Hi Frank, Cook Report June-August 2004 p138 Property Rights David Reed: It's sad to me that the entire debate on “spectrum” policy is carried out in terms of imperfect metaphors, crafted to support a particular point of view. The most technically inaccurate metaphor to me is the metaphor that likens “spectrum” to “land”, with efficient “land use” being the rhetorical step to “property rights”. That metaphor is so incredibly wrong on a technical basis for many, many well-understood physical reasons - and ultimately leads to the self-fulfilling creation of scarcity of an utterly imaginary resource - a modern Phlogiston! - that has no foundation in reality - only in the structural designs of legacy radio systems. Imagine if we were still trying to fight fire based on the Phlogiston theory? It was actually pretty accurate for many situations to think about Phlogiston, and I have no doubt it could have been patched with “epicycles” to explain many of the counter-experiments (for example, if Phlogiston were assigned a negative weight, Lavoisier’s demo could have been explained). I highly doubt that chemistry would have made much progress, however, in the intervening centuries. Andrew Lippman – MIT: The best metaphor I have come across is still the open sea. Of course, it suits my attitudes, but it is also instructive. The principle behind regulation of the sea is that everyone who uses it is an equal partner with equal rights. Yet it is a big, open space whose actual use changes considerably over time. It is also subject to many of the vagaries of spectrum and the potential for disruption (piracy, for example.) The principle is that everyone on it has to be active and obey rules. The primary rule is that we take all necessary measures to avoid a collision. With respect to radio, perhaps all radios should obey rules and be capable of response. Barges, with no power, are tethered. Radios with no transmitters perhaps ought to be similarly restricted. They are allowed, but they get few rights. . . . Harold Feld: This need not be the case. As I have observed before, Sections 324 and 333 should be applicable to unlicensed technologies. These sections prevent use of more than the minimum power necessary to transmit the desired information, and prohibit malicious interference. I believe they already prohibit devices designed to interfere with other spectrum users, or could be so interpreted by the FCC without doing damage to the current unlicensed scheme in the same way that a grant of exclusivity would. petere