Spectrum Policy for the Emerging Ultrabroadband World

Imagine a world with finite spectrum but infinite demand for wireless bandwidth. In such a world, which we shall call the ?wireless ultrabroadband world, what would the wireless telecommunications architecture look like? And what type of property rights regime would accompany it?

No telecommunications architecture following known laws of nature could provide infinite wireless bandwidth. But this paper argues that the architecture that would get closest would be one with very short wireless end user links attached to a wired backbone. It further argues that in such a world the most efficient property rights regime for spectrum management would be one that bundles rights to use spectrum with rights of possession to tangible property.

Contrast this world to the wireless narrowband world in which we currently live in, where demand for wireless bandwidth is relatively modest, wireless links correspondingly large, and the most efficient property rights regime for spectrum management is predominantly one that unbundles spectrum and tangible property rights.

The unbundled property rights regime corresponds to the FCC’s current system of licensing spectrumin in which licenses to use spectrum are granted without consideration of tangible property rights. The bundled property rights regime parallels much of the practice--but not the theory--of the FCC’s current system of unlicensed spectrum.

This paper is divided into three parts:

1) Bundled versus Unbundled Property Rights
2) Wireless Links in an Ultrabroadband Network
3) Public Policy Recommendations

To view the full paper, see the PDF document linked below.  This paper was adapted as a presentation given at the “Ultrabroadband Networks and the Personal Media Cloud" conference, hosted by Columbia University's Institute for Tele-Information.