The Need to Open Radio Bands

In May, the House Energy and Commerce Committee approved a measure aimed at opening a huge chunk of the government radio spectrum to commercial use. The committee’s vote was welcome news for companies eager to offer consumers and businesses a host of new wireless information appliances, from inexpensive cordless phones to new kinds of computer networks.

These entrepreneurs are stymied by lack of space in the commercial radio spectrum. It is as if would-be airline operators couldn’t fly because there was no space left in the air lanes for their jets. The pinch is even being felt by cellular telephone owners, who are discovering that dial tone is often a scarce resource in crowded urban areas. Just as the aviation industry has learned to fly its airliners closer together, wireless providers are finding new ways to pack more signals into a given piece of the radio spectrum without interference. For example, CDMA--code division multiple access--is a scheme theoretically capable of delivering capacity 20 times that of current cellular telephone systems.

But there is a limit to how far technologies such as CDMA can stretch commercial spectrum allocations. More room is needed, and entrepreneurs and legislators alike have noticed that the government’s share of the radio spectrum seems all but vacant compared to the commercial bands. It is as if airliners were restricted to a few crowded air lanes, while the rest of the sky was reserved for passage of the occasional military jet.

A measure just approved by the Commerce Committee amounts to an instruction to the secretary of commerce and the Federal Communications Commission to transfer 200 megahertz of radio spectrum (several times the space allocated for cellular phones today) from government to commercial use. A measure similar to that approved by the committee was opposed in 1990 by the Bush Administration on national security grounds.

If the measure becomes law, it will be the beginning of the beginning, a decade-long process of reallocation to specific commercial applications. This process will be complicated by the sheer volume and diversity of potential applications.

The telephone companies and others need space for new categories of low-power wireless phones offering cellular convenience at much lower cost. Computer manufacturers want a chunk of spectrum for wireless computing, replacing wired data networks connecting workstations in offices today. Apple Computer has already filed a petition with the FCC requesting allocation of frequencies for what it calls “data personal communications services.”

More exotic wireless applications wait in the wings. AT&T; and Hewlett-Packard plan to offer pager-based wireless data exchange systems for their new portable computers. Armed with a suitably equipped laptop, a business traveler could stay in constant touch with the office, instantaneously exchanging product orders, memos and phone messages. Chicago Mercantile Exchange traders are already using wireless, hand-held appliances to record trades, minimizing transaction errors as well as opportunity for fraud.

Other wireless appliances will be stranger yet, resembling neither computer nor telephone. Researchers at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center have begun experimenting with “active badges”--identification tags that transmit an infrared signal allowing them to be located by a computer anywhere in the complex. Wireless links are also being considered for automotive applications such as traffic control and automated toll collection.

The technology is in place for a world of Jetson-like wireless conveniences, but not the radio space.

The Commerce Committee’s vote brings wireless vision closer to reality.