Status Quo: The Command and Control Approach
The Command and Control management approach is the one currently employed by most regulators around the globe. This approach advocates that the regulators be the centralized authorities for spectrum allocation and usage decisions. In the US example, the regulator (FCC) determines the use cases for specified spectrum portions, as well as the parties who will have access to them. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) also regulates the physical layer technologies to be employed.
The allocation decisions are often static in temporal and spatial dimensions, meaning that they are valid for extended periods of time (usually decades) and for large geographical regions (country wide). The usage is often set to be exclusive; each band is dedicated to a single provider, thus maintaining interference free communication. The command and control management model dates back to initial days of wireless communications, when the technologies employed required interference-free mediums for achieving acceptable quality. Thus, it is often argued that the exclusive nature of the command and control approach is an artifact of outdated technologies.
The apparent advantages of this model is that services related to public interest could be sustained. In terms of profitability, public interest programs, for example, over-the-air television, may not be as attractive as commercial ones in the provider perspective, but they are nevertheless beneficial for the society. Therefore, these services are often implicitly enforced by the regulator through the license agreements. Another advantage is the standardization that results from such a centralized approach. Such standardization is critical in networked industries, for which the telecommunication industry is a text-book example. One scholar has published an excellent paper that shows how the development of new technologies promises to bring considerably more spectrum to the public, but would require that society embrace a new paradigm of spectrum use.
Read more about this topic: Spectrum Management
Famous quotes containing the words status, command, control and/or approach:
“What is clear is that Christianity directed increased attention to childhood. For the first time in history it seemed important to decide what the moral status of children was. In the midst of this sometimes excessive concern, a new sympathy for children was promoted. Sometimes this meant criticizing adults. . . . So far as parents were put on the defensive in this way, the beginning of the Christian era marks a revolution in the child’s status.”
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)
“For experience showed her that she had not, by marrying a man of a large fortune, obtained any great proportion of property which she could call her own or command at her pleasure.”
—Sarah Fielding (1710–1768)
“... the black girls didn’t get these pills because their black ministers were up on the pulpit saying that birth control pills were black genocide. What I’m saying is that black men have exploited black women.... They didn’t want them to have any choice about their reproductive health. And if you can’t control your reproduction, you can’t control your life.”
—Joycelyn Elders (b. 1933)
“The minute you try to talk business with him he takes the attitude that he is a gentleman and a scholar, and the moment you try to approach him on the level of his moral integrity he starts to talk business.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)