The Power of the Unlicensed Economy

[Commentary] The power of the unlicensed economy derives ultimately from freedom: The freedom of innovators to bring their products to market and the freedom of businesses and individuals to build infrastructure to solve the issues they face, without requiring the permission of spectrum license-holders.

By coordinating users through technical rules built into equipment, some of the unlicensed bands achieve unparalleled spectral efficiency, far in excess of any licensed bands. The FCC’s experiment appears to have succeeded; the tiny fraction of the spectrum devoted to unlicensed usage is already delivering substantial economic benefits. In fact, there are strong grounds to extend the unlicensed experiment into new bands, providing even greater scope for innovation, value creation and more efficient use of spectrum.

[Thanki is currently completing a doctorate at the Institute of Complex Systems Simulation at the University of Southampton, and was formerly a senior associate economist at Ofcom]