Spectrum Policy and the Public Interest

Abstract:     
This chapter for a book on the future of digital television examines how spectrum policy priorities came to shape today's television broadcast system and the issues that will influence the future of wireless video. As video services come to migrate freely between wired and wireless platforms, and as broadcast television merges with other forms of wireless video, spectrum policy and the public interest values that it reflects will shape the video value chain. These values are often crosscutting and require tradeoffs among such interests as maintaining existing communications services, technical innovation, spectrum efficiency, universal service, media diversity, and competition. What tradeoffs are made, and what they cost, is too frequently hidden from public view.

Keywords: spectrum policy, media policy, media regulation, telecommunications regulation, video, Internet, wireless, administrative law

JEL Classifications: K23

Working Paper Series