Spectrum Economics

Spectrum Commons

Spectrum commons is the modern term for the industrial and scientific allocations which are available to all provided that technical constraints are met. These technical constraints help minimise interference. They include identification of off-air signatures (of licensed services) and use of dynamic frequency selection to avoid interfering with these services. The result is a freely available and extensible set of applications.

Typically, bands used as spectrum commons occupy something between 2% and 11% of the total spectrum available in a nation-state. Generally, in a liberalised spectrum regime, regulators choose to provide spectrum towards the upper end of this scale.

InterConnect consultants have undertaken various studies in interference and interference avoidance. In particular, the application of such study has been the development of spectrum policy to achieve an optimum balance between commons and licensed spectrum.