[governance] Spectrum for development and access

[Norbert Bollow]

Anriette Esterhuysen <anriette at apc.org> wrote:

> Hi all.. APC proposed that spectrum feature in the access theme of this
> year's IGF.

I strongly agree that this a good, very important and very timely
topic.

> Policy brief
> http://www.apc.org/en/node/11798/

Hmm... I find it a bit disturbing that your paper, as well as many
other writings about the subject, confuses rather than clarifies
the distinction between the communication medium of electromagnetic  
waves, and the widespread thinking about this communication medium
as consisting of a spectrum of electromagnetic waves with distinct
wavelengths and frequences (where the product of the wavelength and
the frequency is always equal to the speed of light).

The fact is that in the age of analog electronics, there was a
technical necessity for transmitters and receivers of electromagnetic
transmissions to be constructed in such a way that they would send
and receive electromagnetic transmissions at one or more specific
frequencies. As a result of *that*, we now have regulation of
"spectrum" that makes it illegal, for anyone besides the designated
owner of the various regulated frequencies, to use most of the
theorectical communication capacity. However, case for probably
almost all if not all of the frequencies those owners makes so
little use of all that communcation capacity that there would be no
technical whatsoever with others also using those frequencies provided
that the rules for avoiding problems were a bit more sophisticated
than the simplistic rule of assigning each frequency to just one
organization. Furthermore, I've read claims (but haven't persoanlly
checked the details) that the "spectrum" approach of dividing up
electromagnetic communication capacity (which starts by diving it up
as a spectrum of different frequencies) is much less efficient than
other ways of dividing it up which are nowadays also technically
possible.

Anyway, I'm fully in support of the "open spectrum for development"
idea.

Greetings,
Norbert
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