Glenn Fleishman posts a greatcommentary on the recent discussion about the "tragedy of the commons"
of the 2.4 GHz space. Given some comments on the matter by Dewayne
Hendricks, member of the FCC Technology Adisory Council and chairman of the FCC's Spectrum Management Working Group. Definitely worth a read - Glenn points out the real issues involved, the technology limitations, and the industry standards coming out designed to promote shared use of the spectrum.
This is an interesting thought experiment - will the success of the
2.4GHz spectrum (and any other unlicensed spectrum) fail due to its own
success? Will illegal amplifiers turn the spectrum into another
Citizen's Band? Even without illegal amps, is it doomed to failure
because the density of devices will increase too quickly?
I don't think so. But it does remain an open question - how much is
enough? In other words, as 802.11h and other standards that help to
reduce interference become more popular, at what density of spectrum do
even those methods fail? Surely there is a transmission power and
density for which the specrtum becomes unusable. The question is, can
technological advances outpace the bandwidth needs of the public? As
more bandwidth is available over the airwaves, whether by spectrum
allocation, frequency increases, or new standards for interoperable
devices, at what point will the spectrum be rendered effectively
unusable? To what extent is legislation or regulation needed here?
Maybe the answer lies in the fact that the unlicensed spectrum (2.4GHz,
used by 802.11b and others, and 5.3GHz, used by 802.11a), while
unlincensed, IS NOT UNREGULATED. Among other things, all devices have
to follow FCC Part 15 rules, which means that they must be approved by
the FCC before the manufacturers can offer them for sale. Perhaps the
key to saving the commons is to ensure that these devices are
interoperable and, well, for the lack of a better term, polite to other
users of the spectrum.
Of course, this would be an extension to the FCC's regulatory capacity -
essentially asking it to endorse certain protocols at a layer above the
radio. However, I think that by focusing on protocols rather than
products, it (a) does not act anti-competitively, and (b) promotes
the public good (remember, WE own the airwaves!) by enabling more
functionality and usability of the spectrum we use. And if we are
smart, we can agree to a level of interference protection that all
higher level radio protocols can use, allowing for even greater
flexibility.
Think of it as a new layer, sitting between layers 1 and 2 of the
network stack - the new layer would provide for interference detection,
channel switching, and possibly even automated changes in the spread
spectrum algorithms to make sure that different devices, running
different higher-level protocols, would automatically detect each other
and not interfere with each other.