July 12th, 2007
The open source purpose of new spectrum
What is the purpose of frequency regulation?
Is it to maximize returns for investors or to serve the public interest?
Open source does not deliver as much software profit as the proprietary model, but it does deliver enormous value to customers. Thus the free market likes open source. If the purpose of “competition” was to only maximize proprietary profits, we’d give the market to Microsoft.
This concept seems foreign to the present FCC. Chairman Kevin Martin uses words like “competition.” But the word doesn’t mean what he seems to think it means.
His proposed rules for dealing with spectrum TV must leave in 2009 promote only the private interests of incumbents like Verizon. And Verizon likes it that way.
What consumers and businesses need is more spectrum whose rules are defined by equipment, not by the incumbents’ desires for profit. But it’s clear that is not what we’re about to get.
The U.S. falls further behind in the global wireless market each day because we’re protecting proprietors like AT&T and Verizon rather than the public interest in open source communications.
But that’s where Washington’s head is these days, with the monopolists. Innovators like Google and Skype need to understand who their friends and enemies are, then act accordingly.
Politics is also a competitive business. Those politicians who refuse to work in the public interest need to be replaced.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for 30 years, a tech freelancer since 1983. You can follow Dana on Twitter. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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| 07/13/07
