Kevin Werbach argues in "The End of Spectrum" that new technologies call for fundamental reforms. He posted a draft law review article that details his thoughts on spectrum reform. He argues that:
"We should no longer treat spectrum as a concrete physical resource, because new communications technologies don't require exclusive control of frequencies. The implications are profound. There is an emerging communications space, the "supercommons," that represents a vast opportunity to enhance capacity and open up access to the airwaves. To exploit it, a universal entry privilege should be the policy baseline. In other words, anyone could transmit anywhere, at any time, in any way, so long as they did not excessively burden others. To resolve interference disputes, we could use backstops and safe harbors drawn from tort and intellectual property law.If you're interested, the draft (warning, it's 92 pages long) is available below:
http://werbach.com/research/supercommons.pdf
http://werbach.com/research/supercommons.htmlIf you want something shorter, "The End of Spectrum" is a condensed version of the argument in an article for The Feature: http://www.thefeature.com/article?articleid=100112
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