Open spectrum (also known asfree spectrum) is a movement to get theFederal Communications Commission to provide moreunlicensedradio-frequencyspectrum that is available for use by all. Proponents of the "commons model" of open spectrum advocate a future where all the spectrum is shared, and in which people useInternet protocols to communicate with each other, and smart devices, which would find the most effective energy level, frequency, and mechanism.[1] Previous government-imposed limits on who can have stations and who cannot would be removed,[2] and everyone would be givenequal opportunity to use the airwaves for their own radio station, television station, or even broadcast their own website. A notable advocate for Open Spectrum isLawrence Lessig.
National governments currently allocate bands of spectrum (sometimes based on guidelines from theITU) for use by anyone so long as they respect certain technical limits, most notably, a limit on total transmission power. Unlicensed spectrum isdecentralized: there are no license payments or central control for users. However, sharing spectrum between unlicensed equipment requires that mitigation techniques (e.g.: power limitation, duty cycle, dynamic frequency selection) are imposed to ensure that these devices operate without interference.
Traditional users of unlicensed spectrum include cordless telephones, and baby monitors. A collection of new technologies are taking advantage of unlicensed spectrum includingWi-Fi,Ultra Wideband,spread spectrum,software-defined radio,cognitive radio, andmesh networks.[3]
Astronomers use manyradio telescopes to look up at objects such aspulsars in our ownGalaxy and at distantradio galaxies up to about half the distance of the observable sphere of ourUniverse. The use of radio frequencies for communication creates pollution from the point of view of astronomers, at best, creating noise or, at worst, totally blinding the astronomical community for certain types of observations of very faint objects. As more and more frequencies are used for communication, astronomical observations are getting more and more difficult.
Negotiations to defend the parts of the spectrum most useful for observing the Universe are mostly carried out by the international astronomical community, as a grassroots community effort, coordinated in the Scientific Committee on Frequency Allocations for Radio Astronomy and Space Science.