Spectrum Management Policy
Spectrum Audit
Before any decisions can be made, one has to know the current state. Before plans can be made to re-farm, a regulator must know how many spectrum users are currently active. Many may ask "don't regulators know this anyway?" That answer is all too often "no!". The leading regulators in the world have very poor records. Spectrum audit is the improvement of spectrum management records - records on licensees, equipment, locations and other essential information to make informed spectrum management decisions.
Audit may be done in a variety of ways. Audit verifies that the records in the spectrum management database are a valid representation of the real spectrum users. The records don't have to be perfect - just adequate to allow benefit to be had.
The simplest method is to take the records and through inquisitorial investigation, confirm them correct. Where errors are found these must be corrected. Where data fields are empty, these must be filled with real data or defaults.
The first action is to acquire the data. Sometimes records are in paper. Sometimes they are in Excel or another format. Either way, they must be imported to a staging database in which the audit activity will take place.
The next action is to cleanse the data. This involves a syntax check and some basic syntax error corrections. Then the real action begins. The data must be improved. This might be done manually or automatically running scripts to populate fields. Finally the data set must be delivered back to the regulator into whatever tool it is to be used further.
InterConnect consultants have been involved in major audits with anything from a few thousand up to several tens of thousands of data records. We understand the need for audit, the techniques involved and the outcomes and improvements possible.