Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- I Emerging problems with the current spectrum management approach
- II Markets
- 4 Market solutions
- 5 Auctions
- 6 Spectrum trading: secondary markets
- 7 Technical issues with property rights
- 8 Economic issues with property rights
- 9 Competition issues relating to spectrum
- 10 Band management
- III Regulation
- IV Conclusions
- Further reading
- Abbreviations
- Author biographies
- Subject index
4 - Market solutions
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 August 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- I Emerging problems with the current spectrum management approach
- II Markets
- 4 Market solutions
- 5 Auctions
- 6 Spectrum trading: secondary markets
- 7 Technical issues with property rights
- 8 Economic issues with property rights
- 9 Competition issues relating to spectrum
- 10 Band management
- III Regulation
- IV Conclusions
- Further reading
- Abbreviations
- Author biographies
- Subject index
Summary
Introduction
Historically, regulators have assigned frequencies by issuing licences to specific users for specific purposes – an administrative approach. The administrative approach can also be more or less prescriptive on the details of spectrum use. Often it has involved specifying what equipment a licensee can use and where, and at what power levels it can be used.
This is a good way to control interference, yet such methods are often slow and unresponsive to new technological opportunities. They also assume a level of knowledge and foresight on the part of the spectrum regulator which it may not possess. Attention has recently been focussed on creating genuine markets for spectrum and spectrum licences under which both the ownership and use of spectrum can change in the course of a licence's operation. This is a major step beyond the auctioning of licences which are not subject to trading and change of use. It does, however, require the full specification of what “property rights” to spectrum can be traded and utilised.
Some spectrum, especially for short-range use (BlueTooth, RFIDs, microwave ovens, various remote control devices, wireless security systems, etc.) need not be licensed at all. This might be the case where users do not interfere with one another, or because new technologies can be employed which are capable of dealing with interference as it happens. If such coexistence can be achieved, the spectrum commons approach is desirable.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Essentials of Modern Spectrum Management , pp. 37 - 42Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007