From: sidney@taurus.apple.com (Sidney Markowitz)
Date: Wed, 3 Aug 94 15:48:06 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: broadcast encryption
Message-ID: <9408032247.AA06921@toad.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Jonathan Rochkind <jrochkin@cs.oberlin.edu> wrote about why amateur
frequencies should be available for a peoples Internet access:

The problem with the radio spectrum is that it is not free, it is a limited
resource. If the allowed use of some portion of the spectrum became too
easy, too useful, too profitable, then that portion would soon become
overloaded with traffic. That is one reason why hams cannot use their
frequencies for any kind of commercial transaction. Once there could be
people making money from the airwaves, they would quickly crowd out the
amateurs. If the government is going to subsidize public access to
communications internetworks, they would do much better to subsidize a
technology that is better suited to point-to-point switched routing. Of
course, that may be in the form of broadcast electromagnetic signals at
line-of-sight frequencoes, whether something like the current cellular
telephone network with higher frequencies and smaller cells, or lots of
small satellites, or it could involve subsidizing lots of fiber all over
the place.

It is the case that there is a lot of pressure for the FCC to make money
privatizing sections of the spectrum. The recent auction of licenses for
newly allocated spectrum earned them much more than was predicted, and will
make it that much harder for hams to hold on to much of the spectrum that
they already have.

 -- sidney markowitz <sidney@apple.com>
    KD6AVY