Does a Spectrum Shortage Inhibit Development of Wireless Data Nets?
During the past five years two developments which challenge conventional assumptions about spectrum shortages have occurred. The first is that computers and radios are merging. Civilian applications of spread spectrum radio technology have been developed using techniques that take allow spectrum to be used much more efficiently. The development of digital versions of these same techniques has accelerated this trend. The second is that the FCC, in Part 15.247 of its rule making procedures has allocated portions of the radio spectrum in which these low powered devices can operate without licenses. While some have wondered whether the FCC’s doing this signals an intentional admission that spectrum is no longer scarce, most seem to feel that the FCC intended no such conclusions to be drawn. In fact these spectrum sections were never available for conventional communications having been originally set aside for Industrial, Scientific, and Medical applications where radio waves are used to p
