[rayiner]

I used to work precisely on the sort of technology that would make this possible, and I support liberalizing FCC regulations, but I think your comment is off-the-wall. At the time FCC licensing was instituted, there were no cognitive radios that could listen for free channels before transmitting. Heck, frequency-agile radios didn't exist. Even today, whitespaces technology isn't so well-developed that we could just get rid of the licensing regime. Remember the wireless mic debacle? http://gizmodo.com/287736/microsoft-google-dell-coalition-wh....

[jessaustin]

My reading of the "debacle" was more that a fringe industry had been squatting on a particular band for a really long time, and was able to frighten a bunch of churches into complaining to Congress that they didn't want to have to buy new gear. I would understand that sort of excuse for AM broadcast, but why the hell don't wireless microphones run over more modern radio tech anyway?

Of course I don't suggest that cognitive radio could have existed in the 1930s. Instead I suggest that it should be given more room to operate now. So they had a problem demo seven years ago: what has happened since? Is it "off-the-wall" to wonder why licensing hasn't changed in response to the invention of the integrated circuit?

EDIT: I'm talking about opening specific, limited bands ("a few more spectrum slices") to unlicensed use, in precisely the fashion in which 2.4 GHz is currently open, although at higher power. Though I do dream of the FCC folding (in much the way I dream that of the DEA or CIA), I realize that in serious conversation with serious people one must focus on the tenable.

[rayiner]

Fringe or not, it illustrates why we have licensing. People bought cheap, dumb equipment, and it was fragile. All predictable. But at the same time, very expensive and sophisticated technology couldn't figure out how to protect the cheap dumb equipment. Its a very hard problem. And "Sucks for them" isn't a practical response when you're trying to change the status quo.

It might have been one bad demo, but it was also a very simple, controlled experiment. The spectrum environment without FCC licensing would be orders of magnitude more challenging. The technology just isn't there yet to replace the FCC across the whole spectrum. The FCC certainly could move faster to allow the technology to develop, but your characterization of the situation and aspersions are inaccurate and unwarranted.

You're also ignoring how expensive this equipment is. Simple white spaces devices are pretty cheap, but the kind of radio that would could freely operate over a large part of the spectrum is still very expensive. Just the analog frontend capable of tuning to a wide range of frequencies is expensive. Retrofitting existing devices with the technology, at the scale that would facilitate deregulation, would be quite impractical right now.

It's a really interesting space, and I think it has tremendous potential, but there is a lot of development to be done before the technology lives up to the libertarian fantasy. I think we're at the stage where it would make sense to have an unlicensed band that allowed "smart" devices only, which followed a minimum set of rules. The challenge here is getting someone to give up their spectrum.

[jessaustin]

I think we're at the stage where it would make sense to have an unlicensed band that allowed "smart" devices only, which followed a minimum set of rules.

Then we agree on the only point that matters.

The challenge here is getting someone to give up their spectrum.

That is indeed a challenge. In one case, this effort included updating every television in the nation. Yet still, five years after the digital transition, from the WIA Spectrum Policy [0] page:

Rural areas continue to be the most underserved market in terms of wireless reach and innovation. However, the abundance of white spaces in these regions provides a unique opportunity for rural wireless providers to use this unused spectrum to promote coverage through high-capacity service. While the advantages to expanding this expansion remain undisputed, firm action has not been taken as of yet in order to allow the operation of higher powered spectrum in these areas. At present, TV band devices are not permitted to operate at power levels greater than 4 watts EIRP, even though expanding this power limit would pose virtually no threat of interference to current broadcast bands. The delay in the advance of power limits only serves to hinder wireless progress in rural areas of the country.

That seems wasteful: usable white space was one of the selling points of the digital transition, and yet giant blocks remain unusable for no publicly-acknowledged reason. I mean, I hesitate to even ask what the military are doing with all their spectrum while this is still going on.

[0] http://www.wirelessinnovationalliance.org/index.cfm?objectid...

[rayiner]

The "virtually no threat of interference" claim needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Digital TV receivers are pretty dumb devices that aren't very good at rejecting interference.

I'm a big proponent of having minimum interference tolerance requirements for receivers, and there's work happening on that front: http://transition.fcc.gov/bureaus/oet/tac/tacdocs/WhitePaper.... But we'd be talking about another round of updating every television in the nation...

[jessaustin]

The "virtually no threat of interference" claim needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Digital TV receivers are pretty dumb devices that aren't very good at rejecting interference.

When I enter "Los Angeles CA" on the FCC reception map site [0], there are 23 green/strong broadcasters listed. When I enter the location of my home, there are two. Are we to believe devices that can handle the presence of 22 "competing" signals in one situation will be completely overwhelmed by the presence of one or two extra signals in the other situation?

[0] http://transition.fcc.gov/mb/engineering/dtvmaps/

[rayiner]

Those 23 broadcasters are all on different channels. We're talking about devices that could potentially be on the same channel as an exiting TV station. This is not a trivial problem to solve, because you need very sensitive detectors on the "smart" device to ensure that it correctly detects when there is an active station on a given channel: http://www.sharedspectrum.com/wp-content/uploads/2008-10_SSC....

One of the most complex aspects of doing this sort of thing is various permutations of the "hidden node" problem. Essentially, the problem is that a "smart" transmitter may not hear a dumb one, and use an in-use channel, interfering with a dumb receiver, which otherwise could hear the dumb transmitter. This tends to happen because geographic obstacles can cause individual nodes to have a different view of the spectrum environment.