Talk:Spectrum management

Proposals for Improving the article

This article is very narrowly USA-centric. What about spectrum management elsewhere in the world? The UK? Africa? etc??? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.141.1.80 (talk) 11:27, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I believe this entry has somehow became a political criticism of the US FCC, as opposed to a descriptive text detailing the concept of "Spectrum Management" and the relevant discussions. I propose to reorganize the entry in the form of below mentioned subsections. I will fill in my proposals for each subsection I mention gradually. I will appreciate editor feedback on my proposals and suggestions on ways of improving them.

Section proposals:
1) Spectrum Management
2) Status Quo: The Command and Control Spectrum Management Approach
3) A Critique of The Command and Control Spectrum Management Approach
3) Reformist Approaches: The Spectrum Commons and The Spectrum Property Rights Approaches
4) State of Play
5) Spectrum Governing Bodies in the World and the US Omer182 (talk) 21:00, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

--- I agree. Most of the world does not live in the USA. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.236.246.185 (talk) 04:18, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Spectrum Property Rights (Proposed Sub-Section)

Below is my proposal for the spectrum property rights section:

The spectrum property rights model advocates that the spectrum resources should be treated like land, i.e. private ownership of spectrum portions should be permitted. The allocation of these portions should be implemented by means of market forces. The spectrum owners should be able to trade these portions in secondary markets. Alternatively, the spectrum owners would be able to use their bands in any way they want through any technology they prefer (service and technology neutrality). Although the spectrum property rights model advocates exclusive allocation of transmission rights, it is not the same as a licensed regime. The main difference is the service and technology neutrality advocated in the spectrum property rights approach, as opposed to strict requirements on services and communications technologies inherent in licensed governance regimes.

The basic idea of spectrum property rights was first proposed by Leo Herzel in 1951, who was a law student at the time preparing a critique of the US FCC policies in spectrum management. Ronald Coase, a Nobel winning economist in 1959. When he first presented his vision to FCC, he was asked whether he was making a joke. Omer182 (talk) 21:14, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

The supporters of the spectrum property rights model argue that such a management scheme would potentially promote innovation and more efficient use of spectrum resources, as the spectrum owners would potentially want to economize on their resources.

The spectrum property rights model is often critiqued for potentially leading to artificial scarcity and the hold-up problem. The hold-up problem refers to the difficulty in aggregation of the spectrum resources (which would be required for high bandwidth applications), as the individual spectrum owners could ask for very high compensation in return of their contribution.Omer182 (talk) 19:40, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Status Quo: The Command and Control Spectrum Management Approach (Proposed Section)

Below is my proposal for the Command and Control Spectrum Management Approach:

The Command and Control management approach is the currently employed one by most of the regulators around the globe. This approach advocates that the regulators be the centralized authorities for spectrum allocation and usage decisions. In the US example, the regulator (FCC) determines the the use cases for specified spectrum portions, as well as the parties who will have access to them. The FCC also regulates the physical layer technologies to be employed.

The allocation decisions are often static in temporal and spatial dimensions, meaning that they are valid for extended periods of time (usually 10s of years) and for large geographical regions (country wide). The usage is often set to be exclusive; each band is dedicated to a single provider, thus maintaining interference free communication. The command and control management model dates back to initial days of wireless communications, when the technologies employed required interference-free mediums for achieving acceptable quality. Thus, it is often argued that the exclusive nature of the command and control approach is an artifact of outdated technologies.

The apparent advantages of this model is that services that would not be attractive (in terms of profitability) enough in the provider perspective, but are nevertheless useful for the society, are often implicitly enforced by the regulator through the license agreements. Another advantage is the standardization that results from such a centralized approach. Such standardization is critical in networked industries, for which the telecommunication industry is a text-book example. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Omer182 (talk • contribs) 20:26, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Merge with frequency allocation or move?

This merger was proposed in August with no result or discussion thus far. Looking at the two articles, this spectrum management article seems to be almost entirely about the USA and its FCC, while article frequency allocation is almost entirely about international agreements. So, rather than merge, it seems to me the right thing is to rename this article as something like Spectrum management in the United States. Jim.henderson (talk) 21:20, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I believe we need a major restructuring here. The thing is that the article as it stands now (partly due to my intervention as well) considers both the specific regulations in US, as well as the more abstract level ideas of spectrum commons and spectrum property rights, that are considered not only by FCC but other regulators as well (like the ofcom in Britain and the PTS in Sweden).

I would propose a structure where we first consider the management models (command and control (current), commons, property rights (proposed alternatives)) at an abstract level, and then discuss practices in US, Europe and rest of the world in seperate sections.Omer182 (talk) 15:15, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually my proposal is already summarized in the first section on this page. Implementing it might reduce the need to rename or merger. Omer182 (talk) 15:17, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Frequency allocation is meaningless without the context of this article. I suggest a merge (again!). We should also mention the technical issues (interference, coverage contours, intermodulation problems, etc.) here. --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:55, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

The lead section also needs a rewrite from thesis-ese to English. There's a whole screenful of text and no definition sentence! We need to explain what spectrum management is, why it's desirable, who does it, how its done internationally (and why international coordination is needed) and *then* get into which agencies regulate it in the US and other countries. --Wtshymanski (talk) 16:00, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Frequency allocation is the traditional term that people are familiar with, and they come here to find the numbers and graphics to support that. Do what you want with the management and policy stuff, but people need a place to find the numbers, so please keep these data in that heading. Parveson (talk) 00:10, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Merger proposal

Formal request has been received to merge the two articles Spectrum management and Frequency administration; dated: September 2017. Proposer's Rationale: same subject. Discuss here. Richard3120 (talk) 15:32, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

Both articles describe the administration of radio spectrum by the regulator. Merge. --Tim Sutter (talk) 14:59, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia Ambassador Program course assignment

This article is the subject of an educational assignment at Michigan State University supported by WikiProject United States Public Policy and the Wikipedia Ambassador Program during the 2011 Spring term. Further details are available on the course page.

The above message was substituted from {{WAP assignment}} by PrimeBOT (talk) on 16:23, 2 January 2023 (UTC)