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Questionaire and Workshop Presentations on Wireless Commons

About two weeks ago we mentioned that a workshop was to be held in Brussels on 27 April to discuss "Technical, Regulatory and Economic Issues Relating to Collective Use of Radio Spectrum." The European Commission awarded a contract to a consortium of consultants to study those issues; the consultants organized the workshop to present their preliminary findings, and to solicit stakeholder input.

The presentations from that workshop are now online: click here for the list. Our presentation is here, and a Powerpoint presenting "preliminary thoughts" on the study's recommendations is online here.

The consultants also created a web-form questionaire on "collective use of spectrum" which can be filled out by anyone. Each respondent is given a unique identifier so no one else can read or change another respondent's answers. Instructions for getting an identifier are given on the website. Some of the questions asked are:

  • "Do you have other needs for wireless communication that you feel could be met by new types of licence exempt product / application that is not currently available?"
  • "Do you have a view on the future demand for collective use of spectrum?"
  • "Do you think there should be various categories of spectrum for collective use, geared towards various levels of spectrum quality (some less crowded, some more monitored, and so on)"?
  • "If so, would you be willing to pay for the right to access higher quality spectrum (e.g. where the number of users that can access the spectrum were limited)?"
  • "How do you think the technology deployed in collective bands will evolve over the coming years?"
  • "Do you have a view on the potential benefits and/or likely future demand for UWB applications?"
The questionaire is supposed to be completed by either 19 or 28 May - the website says 19 May, but a more recent email to the workshop participants says 28 May. Either way, don't delay: this is a unique opportunity to influence European policy on the expansion of radio commons.

[: 4 May 2006]