Supercommons: Toward a Unified Theory of Wireless Communication (459K PDF)
I will be presenting this paper at the 31st TPRC Conference
on Communications, Information, and Internet Policy this weekend. It’s
an 88-page law review article calling for a fundamental reformulation
of wireless spectrum policy.
I argue 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. A
universal entry privilege, allowing
anyone to transmit anywhere, at any time, in any way, should be the
policy baseline. To resolve interference disputes, we can use a set of
backstops and safe harbors drawn from
tort and intellectual property law. Exclusive property rights
only add unnecessary transaction costs and create artificial
scarcity. The
“supercommons” represents a vast opportunity to enhance communications
capacity and open up access to the airwaves.
I welcome comments on the draft at kevin@werbach.com.