Open Spectrum Movement
Self-portrait
In the summer of 2004, a project named Open Spectrum International began under the auspices of Czech Civic Association "Mista v Srdce." The aim was to promote awareness of "open spectrum" concepts outside North America, and to advocate the expansion of the radio bands available for license-exempt use. As we grew, it became clear that we needed an independent legal basis for our work. So in May 2005, we registered as a Dutch nonprofit foundation ("stichting") with offices in Amsterdam and Prague: Stichting Open Spectrum translates into English as the Open Spectrum Foundation.
We invite anyone who shares our interests and aims to contact us to discuss possible collaboration. We cannot intervene in policymaking without local partners, and we have a constant need for help with translations. Email us if you have information to contribute - or time, or contacts, or ideas...
Description
The Open Spectrum Movement intends to open access to the spectrum of radio frequencies for an effective and equitable use of this resource, so that the general public can use radio waves and have their own radio station, television, or web site. The goal is to eliminate the licenses that governments have required for more than a century to restrict and regulate the power of transmission, deciding who can transmit or receive, at which levels of power, in which locations and for what purposes.
The project began in the summer of 2004, founded by Robert Horvitz, who has been involved in radio policies since 1970, opening the spectrum in developing countries or in warfare. Open spectrum was hosted by the Czech Civic Association "Mista vSrdce" whose goal was to promote awareness of the concept of "open spectrum" in North America. In May 2005, it was registered as a Dutch non-profit foundation with offices in Prague and Amsterdam.
Open Spectrum is based on the idea that technology can reduce or eliminate the need for governments to regulate wireless communication. It's an ideal of freedom of use of radio frequencies, a criticism of the traditional spectrum management and a possibility of emergence of new technologies and trends in the design of radio. This possibility is based on a new design called "cognitive radio" or smart radio; this type of devices recognize the presence of other signals in the environment, re-tuning rapidly to open channels and making available others as soon as they are opened. Horowitz explains that this works like road traffic: with the old radio disign, cars should use the allocated space regardless of size. With the "cognitive radio", everything changes, as motorists have the necessary intelligence to change lanes and occupy the space available immediately, speeding up the transit and building space. Similarly, users are finding free spaces for the transmission of their content.
Wifi technology shows that a large number of people can share a band without specific channels allocated if all use low waves to reduce the effects of interference, even when using only what is known as a space garbage spectrum: a space that was so full of noise that it was impossible for sale, so it went to Wifi, sharing it with other devices such as microwaves.
Open Spectrum conducts research and surveys to identify countries with restrictive policies, with the aim of initiating or activating processes to change them. There are still disagreements on the de-regulation of global and regional spectrums. For example, those companies who pay thousands of million dollars for a frequency, do not agree with free access policies to similar frequencies. On the other hand, "passive" radio services, such as radio astronomy, pose another problem: ground stations do not emit signals that can be detected by smart radios, and must be capable of receiving extremely weak signals without interference, so they must be protected as natural areas are. Even before these and other problematics, it is widely considered that we are inevitably evolving to a future in which traditional forms of regulation will be impossible and thousands of RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) will emerge in the next decade.
Links
URL: http://www.openspectrum.info
Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.openspectrum.info
