Open Spectrum: Latest Publications

From the fire fighters who died on 9/11 to the rescue workers struggling to help victims of Hurricane Katrina, recent crises have demonstrated that the absence of reliable and interoperable voice and data communications among public safety agencies is an urgent national dilemma. While the need for voice interoperability among first responders is a fundamental and longstanding public safety issue that must be resolved, many communities across the nation have already begun to supplement their voice communication networks with wireless… more

updated January 10, 2007 

Low-cost, high-speed, community-based wireless broadband networks are cropping up across the country -- revolutionizing public communications, spurring economic development, and bridging the digital divide. They blanket entire towns, cities and counties in rural and urban areas and serve as mobile communications systems for public safety agencies in communities nationwide. While the vast majority of these broadband providers are small commercial Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISPs), a growing number are sponsored by local governments and nonprofit community groups.

There… more

In November 2002, the FCC’s Spectrum Policy Task Force released a report calling for shifting large amounts of spectrum from the current command and control allocation system to both unlicensed and licensed flexible-use service. Since then, the FCC has started numerous proceedings to follow through on these recommendations. But whereas the proceedings granting flexible use to incumbent license holders and others have been fast tracked and completed, the proceedings seeking to allocate more unlicensed spectrum have, with only one… more

On May 12, 2004, the FCC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) proposing unlicensed use of unused TV channels 2-to-51 (Docket 04-186). When the DTV transition ends in early 2009, most of the nation’s 210 TV markets will have between 10 and 40 unassigned channels reserved for broadcasting, but not in use. The FCC proposal would allow a new generation of wireless broadband devices to utilize the vacant TV channels in each local market for WiFi and other unlicensed… more

Which has more influence on spectrum policy: the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) or the various federal, state, and local departments of transportation? Conventional wisdom would place the FCC as the hands down winner. Surely, that continues to be the case. But if current technological trends continue, the departments of transportation, especially the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT), could end up a strong second. We're all familiar with the growing importance of municipal Wi-Fi. But why not highway Wi-Fi? Why… more