EU May Push for Competitive Spectrum Trading

anaesthetica writes "The Financial Times is reporting that Viviane Reding, the EU media commissioner, wants to spur a pan-European market through which companies could buy and sell cross-border access to the European spectrum regime, including frequencies used by TV, radio, mobile telephone and broadband services. Large European media companies are skeptical about the spectrum trading plan, saying both that there is no logic behind a pan-European telecom model, and that such a plan could interfere with satellite radio. Ms. Reding believes that the change would spur harmonization of the fragmented European telecom band allocation. This change is set to coincide with the 2012 switch from analog to digital TV broadcasting, when a significant portion of the spectrum will be freed up."

Ignorance and false markets

[argoff]

You can't have a market, till you also have a scarcity. Here the scarcity is not in spectrum, but in technology that can distinguish spectrum.
Physics wise, spectrum is no different than light and very similar to sound. If a EU tried to create a market of certain colors that people could trade or own a monopoly on, would we see this as a healthy market or even just? FYI, the spectrum market is not about free markets, but maintaining RF control. This is just a way of getting 3rd partys to have "skin in the game" to keep the system proped up.

No-Brainer

[toby34a]

This is just a pure no-brainer. Let's say that I live on the border of France and Belgium... if the two countries are on different frequencies, I'm going to be SOL on a lot of the services that are going to be brought around with the huge bandwith sale. In the US, the bandwith works because it's standardized across the nation (hence you can go coast-to-coast on your cell phone on the same fricking network). In the EU, this just makes sense to have this same model, because of the area involved. Having your cellphone work in England as well as Turkey should be a good boost for this plan.

Re:I know this is off topic but...

[pilgrim23]

Yet his point is quite accurate. I just got home and tuned in from my iBook instead of my trusty PC at work. I can't decide if this new look sucks worse viewed from IE, Opera, Camino, Firefox or my current Safari. The only common value is that it truely does suck.

Re:Standard static

[KDR_11k]

hmm - do you know if SETI saves any recordings of the past signals they intercept?

Of course not. They don't want aliens to invade our planet and destroy humanity for copyright infringement.