From Napster to FCCster: Will 'Smart Radio' and Direct Citizen Access to the Airwaves make the FCC Obsolete?

Because the FCC has been slow to provide adequate spectrum for unlicensed broadband applications like Wi-Fi, growing numbers of software-savvy citizens are poised to adapt off-the-shelf Wi-Fi equipment to operate on the largely vacant, licensed bands adjacent to the crowded unlicensed frequencies. According to Scott Rafer, author of the provocative FCCster.com web site, unless the FCC acts quickly to provide more unlicensed spectrum for citizen access, the coming era of software defined radios will subvert the paradigm by which our airwaves are regulated and controlled. Is this vision just hype, or has the revolution begun ? Will the military's emerging XG software defined radio lead the way or will it be a Kazaa-like company beyond the reach of the feds? Will the key enabling technology be Linksys' frequency agile routers, Intel's next-generation, smart radio technology embedded into its microprocessors, or some pirate smart radio chip smuggled in to this country like cocaine?

Participants

• Scott Rafer
  FCCster.com Blog Author and Chairman, Wifinder, Inc. (worldwide registrar of Wi-Fi hotspots)


• Dewayne Hendricks
  Founder, the Dandin Group and FCC Technical Advisory Council Member


• Eric Blossom
  Founder & Architect, GNU Radio Project (a free toolkit for building and deploying smart, Software Defined Radios)


• Mark McHenry
  President, Shared Spectrum Company; and former Program Manager, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)


• Alan J. Scrime
  Chief, Policy Rules Division, Office of Engineering and Technology, FCC