Library

The literature of Open Spectrum is already large and growing rapidly. Here we will try to focus on the classics and the best recent texts, arranged by topic in chronological order. If you see something that should be here but isn't, please tell us about it. Non-English items are particularly welcome.

Spectrum Management

1.1 General

• Economic Mechanisms for Efficient Wireless Coexistence by Omar Aftab, Technical Report #MIT-LCS-TR-876 (August 2002).
• "Advanced Wireless Technologies and Spectrum Management" by Taylor Reynolds, and "Radio Spectrum Management for a Converging World" by Eric Lie - both prepared for an ITU workshop on Radio Spectrum Management for a Converging World (Geneva, 16-18 February 2004).
• "Modeling the efficiency properties of spectrum management regimes," by Carol Ting, Steven S. Wildman, and Johannes M. Bauer, Quello Center for Telecommunications Management and Law, Working Paper WP-04-02 (2004).
• "Modern Spectrum Management Alternatives" by Robert J. Matheson, powerpoint presentation at ISART-6 (February 2004).
• Dynamic Spectrum Access - Phase 1: Scenarios and research challenges, by Fredrik Berggren, Olav Queseth, Jens Zander, Börje Asp, Christian Jönsson, Peter Stenumgaard, Niklas Z Kviselius, Bertil Thorngren, Urban Landmark and Jonas Wessel (September 2004).
• "How Free is the Radio Spectrum?" - a special issue of Info, Volume 8, Issue 2 (2006), edited by Erik Bohlin, Arnd Weber and Brigitte Preissl.
• "Spectrum Management: The Killer Application of Ad Hoc and Mesh Networking," by John A. Stine, The MITRE Corporation, October 2005.
• "Access to the Electromagnetic Spectrum is a Foundation for Development," by Christian Sandvig, pages 50-54 in Media Matters: Perspectives on Advancing Governance and Development, edited by Mark Harvey (Paris, France: Internews Network Inc., 2006).
• "Regulatory aspects of Software defined Radio," by Paul Bender (BnetzA), presented at ETSI's Software Defined Radio/Cognitive Radio Workshop in Sophia Antipolis, Greece, 9 February 2007.
• "Future Management of Spectrum," by S. Olafsson, B. Glover and M. Nekovee, BT Technology Journal, Volume 25, Number 2 (April 2007), pages 52-63.
• "Future radio technologies and their impact on spectrum management," SPORT VIEWS Deliverable D3.1 (May 2007).
• "Predicting Areas of Spectrum Shortage - Final Report to Ofcom," by Phil White, David Ramsbottom, Simon Mardle and Melanie Cook, PA Consulting Group (April 2009).
• "The FAT [Frequency Allocation Table] is Dead: Long Live the FAT," by John Berry, InterConnect Communications (May 2011).

1.2 Spectrum Sharing

• Study into Mixed Sharing - Converged Solutions (Final Report), by A. P. Hulbert and Z. Dobrosavljevic, Roke Manor Research Ltd., Report No. 72/04/R/107/U (April 2004).
• "Sharing spectrum the smarter way," by Patrick Mannion, Electronic Engineering Times, 5 April 2004.
• "Managing Shared Access to a Spectrum Commons" (draft) by William Lehr and Jon Crowcroft, September 2005.
• "Improving the sharing of the radio spectrum: Final report to Ofcom," by David Allwright, Chris Heyes, Pete Hulbert, Steve Hurley, Mike Kennett, Robert Leese, Stuart Mitchell, Roger Whittaker, and Glyn Wyman, Red M Document No. GCD RTG1375 (April 2006).
• "Sharing Spectrum through Spectrum Policy Reform and Cognitive Radio," by Jon M. Peha, Carnegie Mellon University, Department of Engineering and Public Policy Paper 5 (January 2008).
• "How I learned to stop worrying and love interference: Using well-defined radio rights to boost concurrent operation," by J. Pierre de Vries (September 2010)
• "The Effect of Interference Cancellation on Spectrum-Sharing Transmission Capacity," by Jemin Lee, Jeffrey G. Andrews and Daesik Hong, IEEE International Conference on Communications, June 2011
• Perspectives on the Value of Shared Spectrum Access, by Simon Forge, Robert Horvitz and Colin Blackman, European Commission, SMART 2011/0017 (February 2012).
• Report to the President: Realizing the Full Potential of Government-Held Spectrum to Spur Economic Growth, Mark Gorenberg, editor, President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (July 2012).
• "Regulatory Framework(s) for Facilitating New Spectrum Sharing Schemes," by Peter A. Tenhula, presentation for ISART (July 2012)

1.3 Reform & De-regulation

• A Working Paper on Frequency Spectrum Deregulation Alternatives, by Douglas W. Webbink, Deputy Chief, Office of Plans and Policy, US Federal Communications Commission (October 1980, 57 pages).
• "Principles for the Communications Act of 2034: The Superstructure of Infrastructure," by Eli M. Noam, Federal Communications Law Journal, Volume 47, number 2 (December 1994). See also "The Unfinished Task of Spectrum Policy Reform," by Janice Obuchowski in the same issue, warning that auctions reduce flexibility in spectrum use.
• "From Consumers to Users: Shifting the Deeper Structures of Regulation Toward Sustainable Commons and User Access," by Yochai Benkler, Federal Communications Law Review, Volume 52, Number 3, pages 561-580 (April 2000).
• "Facilitating Spectrum Management Reform via Callable/Interruptible Spectrum," by Mark M. Bykowsky and Michael J. Marcus, US Federal Communications Commission (September 2002)
• Spectrum Policy Task Force: Report, ET Docket No. 02-135, US Federal Communications Commission, 15 November 2002. See especially the Final Report of the Unlicensed Devices and Experimental Licenses Working Group.
• Telecommunications: Comprehensive Review of US Spectrum Management with Broad Stakeholder Involvement Is Needed, US General Accounting Office: GAO-03-277 (January 2003).
• "The US Experience with Non-Traditional Approaches to Spectrum Management: Tragedies of the Commons and Other Myths Reconsidered" by Carol Ting, Johannes Bauer and Steven Wildman - paper presented at the 31st Research Conference on Communication, Information and Internet Policy, Arlington, VA, September 19-21, 2003. See also the online material from their National Science Foundation grant for "Achieving Innovative and Reliable Services in Unlicensed Spectrum."
• "Can You Hear Me Now? Getting Better Reception from the FCC's Spectrum Policy" by R. Paul Margie, Stanford Technology and Law Review, (2003). Argues the need for standards of "permissible" interference.
• Regulatory Reform as a Tool for Bridging the Digital Divide, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 2004.
• "Spectrum Pooling: An Innovative Strategy for the Enhancement of Spectrum Efficiency," by Timo A. Weiss and Friedrich K. Jondral, IEEE Communications Magazine, volume 42, number 3, pages S8-14 (March 2004).
• "Evolution of Regulation in End-to-End Reconfigurability Context," by Klaus Moessner, Georges de Brito, Lamia Delenda, Paul Bender, Jean Piquemal, David Grandblaise, Karim El-Khazen and Didier Bourse, joint SDR Forum/E2R Project workshop presentation, 2004.
• "The Role of Unlicensed in Spectrum Reform," by William Lehr, 17 March 2005.
• "Is it time to junk spectrum licences?" by Peter Judge, Techworld, 4 May 2005.
• "The Radio Spectrum: Opportunities and Challenges for the Developing World," by Björn Wellenius and Isabel Neto, The World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 3742 (October 2005).
• "На пути к коренной реформе всемирной системы управления использованием радиочастотного спектра" (On the Way to Radical Reform of the World System for Regulating the Use of the Radio-Frequency Spectrum) by Aleksandr Pavlyuk, Vice-Chairman of ITU-R's Radiocommunication Advisory Group - powerpoint presentation in Russian for an ITU Workshop on spectrum management in Kyiv, Ukraine (12-15 July 2005).
• "Spectrum Management Reform and the Notion of the 'Spectrum Commons,'" by Dale N. Hatfield, Southern African Journal of Information and Communication, issue number 4 (spring 2005).
• Towards More Flexible Spectrum Regulation, by J. Scott Marcus, Dr. Lorenz Nett, Mark Scanlan, Dr. Ulrich Stumpf, Prof.Dr. Martin Cave, and Prof.Dr. Gerard Pogorel, wik Consult study for the German Federal Network Agency (December 2005) in German or English.
• An Analysis of Regulatory Frameworks for Wireless Communications, Societal Concerns and Risk: The Case of Radio Frequency (RF) Allocation and Licensing, a doctoral dissertation by Haim Mazar for Middlesex University (2008), looking at cultural influences on regulators' tolerance for risk in decisions related to radio licensing.
• "Impact of the trend towards flexibility in spectrum usage on the principles for drafting Harmonized Standards and the ETSI work programme for Harmonized Standards," ETSI Technical Report TR 102 748 V1.1.1 (2008-05).
• "The Unfinished Radio Revolution: Eight Perspectives on Wireless Interference," edited by J. Pierre de Vries and Kaleb A. Sieh, in the Journal on Telecommunications and High Technology Law, Volume 9, Issue 2 (spring 2011), pages 501-530. These are brief position papers from a Washington conference on radio rights on 12 November 2010:
  • "Progress Toward Rational Spectrum Rights: Are We Getting Anywhere?" by Ellen P. Goodman;
  • "Economic Principles for Ex Ante Rules for Radio," by Gregory Rosston and Scott Walsten;
  • "The Need for Well-Defined Yet Non-Exclusive Radio Operating Rights," by Michael Calabrese;
  • "Forward-Looking Interference Regulation," by Even Kwerel and John Williams;
  • "The 3 Ps: A Resulting Energy Approach to Radio Operating Rights," by J. Pierre de Vries and Kaleb A. Sieh;
  • "Spectrum 'Property Rights' and the Doctrine of Adverse Possession," by Harold Feld;
  • "How Should Radio Operating Rights be Defined, Assigned, and Enforced in Order to Obtain the Maximum Benefit from Wireless Operations?" by Bruce Jacobs;
  • "Defining Radio Rights: Theory and Practice," by Charla M. Rath.

1.4 License exemption

• "On the use of unlicensed frequency spectrum, use rule evolution, and interference mitigation" by S. Michael Yang, Jacob Schanker and Jay Weitzen, Adaptive Broadband (January 2001).
• "Spectrum Management Strategies for Licence-exempt Spectrum: Final Report for the UK Radiocommunications Agency by Mason Communications Ltd. and DotEcon Ltd. (November 2001).
• "Unlicensed Spectrum Success - Lessons for the Next Chapter in FCC Spectrum Management," a speech by FCC Commissioner Kathleen Q. Abernathy at the San Diego Telecom Council, 18 July 2002.
• "Unlicensed and Unshackled: A Joint OSP-OET White Paper on Unlicensed Devices and Their Regulatory Issues" by Kenneth R. Carter, Ahmed Lahjouji and Neal McNeil, FCC Office of Strategic Planning and Policy Analysis, Working Paper number 39 (May 2003).
• "Transition Paths in a Spectrum Commons Regime," by François Bar, presented at the 2003 Telecommunications Policy Research Conference.
• "Unlicensed reuse of licensed spectrum: case UWB," by Aki Silvennoinen, Communications Laboratory, Helsinki University of Technology, 2004.
• "Worldwide, Regional and National Unlicensed and Unprotected RF allocations, for Wireless Network Access (including Social Issues)" by Haim Mazar, for an ITU-T All-Star Network Access Workshop, 2-4 June 2004.
• "World Regulator Summit Endorses Unlicensed Spectrum" by Howard Buskirk, Communications Daily, 14 December 2004. Distributed with permission from the publisher, Warren Communications News.
• "The Role of Licence-Exemption in Spectrum Reform," by Gary Tonge & J. Pierre De Vries, Communications and Strategies, No. 67, page 85 (3rd Quarter 2007).
• Video of a symposium hosted by the Information Economy Project on the "Genesis of Unlicensed Wireless Policy," at the George Mason Law School in Arlington, Virginia, on 4 April 2008 (5 hours).
• "A Transaction Cost Analysis of Secondary vs. Unlicensed Spectrum Use," by Martin B.H. Weiss and Arnon Tonmukayakul, presented at the 2006 Telecommunications Policy Research Conference: "We show that the additional unlicensed spectrum is highly beneficial to spectrum users with small coverage area in a high density setting, whereas the secondary spectrum use is a preferred method for spectrum users with large coverage area and rigid application requirements."
• "Spectrum Miscreants, Vigilantes, and Kangaroo Courts: The Return of the Wireless Wars," by Christian Sandvig, Federal Communications Law Journal, Volume 63, Number 2 (March 2011), pages 481-506.
• "Efficiency Gains and Consumer Benefits of Unlicensed Access to the Public Airways," by Mark Cooper (2012).

1.5 Spectrum as Common Good or Private Property

• "Why spectrum is not property - the case for an entirely new regime of wireless communications policy," by David P. Reed (draft of 27 February 2001).
• The Failure of FCC Spectrum Auctions, by Gregory F. Rose and Mark Lloyd, Center for American Progress, December 2005.
• "Spectrum licensing and spectrum commons - where to draw the line," by Martin Cave and William Webb, presented at "Wireless Communication Policies and Politics: a Global Perspective," an Annenberg Research Network workshop at the University of Southern California, 8-9 October 2004.
• "Spectrum market or spectrum commons?" by Ryszard G. Struzak - presentation notes for an ITU/ICTP Workshop on New Radiocommunication Technologies for ICT in Developing Countries - Africa Region (Trieste, Italy, 17-21 May 2004).
• "Coase's First Question," by Lawrence Lessig, Regulation, Volume 27, Number 3 (fall 2004), pages 38-41.
• "Radio Spectrum and the Disruptive Clarity of Ronald Coase," by Thomas W. Hazlett, David Porter and Vernon Smith, George Mason Law and Economics Research Paper No. 10-18 (April 2010).
• "Open Wireless vs. Licensed Spectrum: Evidence from Market Adoption," by Yochai Benkler, discussion draft (2011).

Legal/Civil Rights Aspects

• "The Electronic First Amendment: An Essay For The New Age," by Glen O. Robinson, Duke Law Journal, Volume 47, Number 5, pages 899-970 (March 1998).
• "Pirate Radio Fights for Free Speech," by Jim Cullen, in The Progressive Populist (1998).
• "Net Gains: Is CBS Unconstitutional?" by Yochai Benkler and Lawrence Lessig, The New Republic (December 1998) - paid access only.
• "Property, Commons, and the First Amendment: Towards a Core Common Infrastructure," by Yochai Benkler, White Paper for the Brennan Center for Justice (March, 2001).
• "Media Convergence and the Chilling Effect of Broadcast Licensing," by Christopher Weare, Titus Levi and Jordan Raphael, Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, Volume 6, Number 3 (2001), pages 47-70.
• "Revolutionary Ideas for Radio Regulation," by Douglas A. Galbi (2002). Applying constitutional principles to radio regulation. Especially see Section IV: "Personal Freedom and Licensing."
• "In Pursuit of a Wireless Device Bill of Rights," by Kalle R. Konston, powerpoint presentation for the Spectrum Management Working Group of the FCC's Technological Advisory Council, 18 September 2002.
• Wireless Spectrum Allocation and New Technologies: Reviewing Old and New Paradigms Through a Case Study of the US Ultra Wideband Proceeding, by Patrick S. Ryan, German Working Papers in Law and Economics, Volume 2002, Paper 8 (2002).
• "The Logic of Scarcity: Idle Spectrum as a First Amendment Violation," by Stuart Minor Benjamin, Duke Law Journal, Volume 52, Number 1, pages 1-112 (October 2002).
• "Rise and Demise of the Technology-Specific Approach to the First Amendment," by Christopher S. Yoo, Georgetown Law Journal (January 2003).
• "Prior Restraint - The Legacy of the Spectrum: Communications Policy as Censorship," by Bob Frankson (January 2003).
• "Spectrum Abundance and the Choice Between Private and Public Control" by Stuart Minor Benjamin, New York University Law Review, Volume 78, Number 6, pages 2007-2102 (December 2003).
• "Local Spectrum Sovereignty: An Inflection Point in Allocation," by Mike Chartier, in Proceedings of the International Symposium on Advanced Radio Technologies, 2-4 March 2004, NTIA Special Publication SP-04-409, pages 29-35.
• "The Scarcity Rationale for Regulating Traditional Broadcasting: An Idea Whose Time has Passed," by John W. Berresford, Media Bureau Staff Research Paper No. 2005-2, US Federal Communications Commission (March 2005).
• "The legitimacy of licence requirements for the use of wireless communications devices," by Daniel Simons, NGO Article 19 (May 2005).
• "Media Licensing, Convergence and Globalization" by Robert Horvitz, Eastbound, issue 1 (March 2006).
• "Spectrum Policy Wonderland: A Critique of Conventional Property Rights and Commons Theory in a World of Low Power Wireless Devices," by J.H. Snider, Telecommunications Policy Research Conference (September 2006).
• "Television licence (broadcast receiver licence)," Wikipedia - brief sketches of the broadcast receiver licensing policies of 49 countries. Apparently these countries never had receiver licenses: Canada, Iran, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco and the United States. These countries are said to have abolished receiver licensing: Australia, the Flemish region of Belgium, Gibraltar, Hungary, India, Malaysia, Netherlands and New Zealand.

The Open Spectrum Movement

• "Spectrum Stretching: Adjusting to an Age of Plenty" by Robert J. Matheson, IVHS Journal, January 1994, Volume 1(4), pages 397-407.
• "Is the UHF Frequency Shortage a Self Made Problem?" by Paul Baran, Marconi Centennial Symposium, Bologna, Italy (23 June 1995).
• "Taking the Next Step Beyond Spectrum Auctions: Open Spectrum Access," by Eli Noam, IEEE Communications Magazine, number 33, page 66 (October 1995).
• "The Case for Shared Wireless Public Spectrum" by David R. Hughes, The Cook Report (25 April 1996).
• "Overcoming Agoraphobia: Building the Commons of the Digitally Networked Environment" by Yochai Benkler, Harvard Journal of Law & Technology (winter, 1997-8).
• "Spectrum Auctions: Yesterday's Heresy, Today's Orthodoxy, Tomorrow's Anachronism: Taking the Next Step to Open Spectrum Access," by Eli Noam, Journal of Law and Economics, volume 41 (1998), pages 778-80. (Only the abstract is freely available online.)
• "Spectrum Flash Dance: Eli Noam's Proposal for 'Open Access' to Radio Waves," by Thomas Hazlett, Journal of Law and Economics 41 (Number 2, part 2, October 1998), pages 805-820.
• "Spread Spectrum: Regulation in Light of Changing Technologies," by Dedric Carter, Andrew Garcia, David Pearah, Stuart Buck, Donna Dutcher, Devendra Kumar and Andres Rodriguez, paper written for an MIT course on "Ethics and Law on the Electronic Frontier" and a Harvard Law School course on "The Law of Cyberspace - Social Protocols" (fall semester 1998), 86 pages: "This paper examines and criticizes the present scheme of spectrum management, and suggests that the present system of spectrum allocation be phased out and replaced with a system of open spectrum access..."
• "The Wireless Craze, The Unlimited Bandwidth Myth, The Spectrum Auction Faux Pas, and the Punchline to Ronald Coase's 'Big Joke': An Essay on Airwave Allocation Policy" by Thomas W. Hazlett, AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies, Working Paper 01-01 (January 2001).
• "Developing a New Spectrum Policy": "In May 2001, The Information Law Institute [of New York University], together with Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, organized a workshop on spectrum policy... The open spectrum project, launched at the May, 2001 meeting, is to understand what is the best regulatory environment for license-free operation and to place that understanding on the public agenda..."
• "The Next Frontier for Openness: Wireless Communications" by Eli Noam, paper presented at the 2001 Telecommunications Policy Research Conference, Alexandria, VA (26 October 2001).
• "Spectrum of the World Unite!" by Kevin Werbach, originally published on thefeature.com (3 December 2001).
• "How Wireless Networks Scale: The Illusion of Spectrum Scarcity" by David P. Reed, presented at the International Symposium on Advanced Radio Technology, Boulder, Colorado, 4 March 2002.
• "Open Spectrum: The New Wireless Paradigm" by Kevin Werbach, New America Foundation, Spectrum Series Working Paper #6 (October 2002); and a 4-page "streamlined" version of the same essay.
• "Building Tools for Edge-Based Control" - a special issue of the Cook Report on Internet, March 2003. Includes discussions about open spectrum, IPv6 and other topics, among Clay Shirky, David Reed, Nobuo Ikeda, Andrew Odlyzko, David Isenberg, Robert Berger, Larry Lessig, Yochai Benkler, Kevin Werbach, Gerry Faulhaber, Michael Calabrese, et al.
• "Expand Unlicensed Spectrum, But Retain Public Interest Review and Dedicated Uses" by Christian Sandvig (Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility) for the US Congress' Internet Caucus discussion of "Sell it, Lease it, or Give It Away -- How Can Spectrum Reform Best Promote Wireless Internet Deployment?" (4 April 2003).
• "Radio Revolution: The Coming Age of Unlicensed Wireless" by Kevin Werbach, New America Foundation (December 2003).
• "The End of Spectrum Scarcity" by Gregory Staple and Kevin Werbach, IEEE Spectrum Online, March 2004.
• "Why Open Spectrum Matters: The End of the Broadcast Nation" by David Weinberger.
• "The Open Spectrum FAQ" by David Weinberger, Jock Gill, Dewayne Hendricks, and David P. Reed.
• "Replacing Spectrum Auctions with a Spectrum Commons" by Stuart Buck, Stanford Technology Law Review (August 2002).
• Archive of presentations made at the Stanford Law School conference on Spectrum Policy: Property or Commons? organized by Thomas Hazlett and Lawrence Lessig.
• "Open Spectrum: A Path to Ubiquitous Connectivity" by Robert J. Berger in "The Wireless Revolution," ACM Queue, volume 1, number 3 (May 2003).
• "Design Challenges of Open Spectrum Access," by Konstantinos V. Katsaros, Pantelis A. Frangoudis, George C. Polyzos and Gunnar Karlsson, IEEE 19th International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications, 2008 (PIMRC 2008).>/li>
• The New America Foundation's Spectrum Policy Program.
• "The Economic Case for Dedicated Unlicensed Spectrum Below 3GHz" by William Lehr, New America Foundation, Spectrum Series Working Paper #9 (April 2004).
• "Efficiency Gains and Consumer Benefits of Unlicensed Access to the Public Airwaves," by Mark Cooper (2012).
• "The Economics of Collaborative Production in the Spectrum Commons," by Mark Cooper, revised version of a paper presented at 1st IEEE International Symposium on New Frontiers in Dynamic Spectrum Access Networks, Baltimore MD, 9 November 2005.
• "Reclaiming the 'Vast Wasteland': Unlicensed Sharing of Broadcast Spectrum" by J. H. Snider and Max Vilimpoc, New America Foundation, Spectrum Series Issue Brief #12 (July 2003).
• David Reed's Open Spectrum email list and Open Spectrum Resource Page.
• "Transition Paths in a Spectrum Commons Regime" by Siddhartha Raja and François Bar (2003). Dealing with "failure modes" in spectrum commons.
• ICT Policy: A Beginner's Handbook, edited by Chris Nicol, Association for Progressive Communication, December 2003. Downloadable in either English or Spanish.

Wireless Communities

• "Digital Packet Networks" by Phil Karn, Usenet, 17 February 1992. The author of the immensely influential KA9Q packet radio software suite outlines his vision of city-wide, user-owned wireless mesh networks: "This is a radical concept, but I think it is entirely realizable. Much of the basic technology has already been pioneered... The market is still wide open to anyone who can build a truly high performance, low cost Part 15 spread spectrum transceiver..."
• "The Rooftop Community Network: Free, high-speed network access for communities" by Dave Beyer, Mark D. Vestrich and JJ Garcia-Luna-Aceves, presented at the "First 100 Feet" Workshop, Information Infrastructure Project, Harvard University, 29-30 October 1996.
• "Free Community Nets Springing Up" by Peggy Albright, Wireless Week (18 March 2002). About the first wi-fi community networks.
• "The Wi-Fi Revolution: A Wired Special Report" by Chris Anderson, Wired Magazine, May 2003.
• "Crossing the Digital Divide: Cost-Effective Broadband Wireless Access for Rural and Remote Areas," by Mingliu Zhang and Richard S. Wolff, Montana State University, revised version of an article that originally appeared in IEEE Communications Magazine, Volume 42, Issue 2 (February 2004), pages 99-105.
• "WiFi Clouds and Zones: A Survey of Municipal Wireless Initiatives," by Scott A. Shamp, Mobile Media Consortium (University of Georgia), 2004
• "Unlicensed Wireless Broadband Profiles: Community, Municipal and Commercial Success Stories," by Matt Barranca, New America Foundation (April 2004.
• "Free Municipal Wi-Fi Has Hit the Streets - Mostly in Places You've Never Heard Of," by Cyrus Farivar, Wired Magazine issue 16.3 (March 2008). Includes lists and a GoogleMap showing the status of about 300 municipal wireless projects in the US.
• "Municipal Wi-Fi Networks: The Goals, Practices, and Policy Implications of the U.S. Case," by François Bar and Namkee Park, Communications & Strategies, Number 61 (2006), pages 107-125.
• "Broadband Internet Access Peaking - Wireless Connectivity To Drive Next Phase Of Global Internet Usage," The Ipsos Group press release, 18 April 2007.
• "Maps of Wireless Network Infrastructure" in Cybergeography's Atlas of Cyberspaces by Martin Dodge.
• "Community Wireless Networks" in the Wikipedia.
• The Picopeering Agreement: a draft "baseline template" for peering agreements between community networks and nodes.
• The "Wireless Commons License": inspired by the GNU General Public License and Creative Commons licenses. Text in Spanish, Catalan or English.
• FreePress' webpage on "Community Internet: Broadband as a Public Service."
• "Study On Local Open Access Networks For Communities and Municipalities," by Malcolm Matson, Rod Mitchell, Rajesh Vasudevan and Charles Watt, OPLAN Foundation/Infodev, 2006.
• "Economic Analysis of Networking Technologies for Rural Developing Regions," by Shridhar Mubaraq Mishra, John Hwang, Dick Filippini, Reza Moazzami, Lakshminarayanan Subramanian and Tom Du, University of California at Berkeley, presented at the First Workshop on Internet and Network Economics, December 2005.
• "Broadband and i2010: The importance of dynamic competition to market growth," by Richard Cadman and Chris Dineen, Strategy and Policy Consultants Network Ltd., 21 February 2005.
• Personal Telco's "List of Wireless Communities."
• Toaster's "Wireless Community Networks List."
• Wireless Anarchy.
• Wi-Fi Co-Op.
• Excerpts from Building Wireless Community Networks (2nd Edition) by Rob Flickenger, O'Reilly Books, June 2003, ISBN 0-596-00502-4).
• "Open-source Wi-Fi links remote communities" by Andrew Donoghue, ZDNet UK (8 July 2004).
• "International Experience: Trends and Case studies" by Axel Leblois, powerpoint presentation for World Bank video-seminar on "Wireless for Development: New Connectivity Solutions for Digital Inclusion," 16 June 2004.
• "Intel throws weight behind US municipal metrozones" - a Wireless Watch analysis for The Register, 8 August 2005. Subtitle: "New model could put key telecoms services back in public ownership."
• The Economic Advantage of Wireless Infrastructure for Development by Adithya Raghunathan, Sustainable Development Department Technical Paper ICT-102, Inter-American Development Bank (April 2005).
• "Community Wireless Networking and Open Spectrum Usage: A Research Agenda to Support Progressive Policy Reform of the Public Airwaves," by Sascha Meinrath, Journal of Community Informatics, Volume 1, Issue 2 (2005), pages 204-209.
• "Return of the Broadcast Wars," by Christian Sandvig, presented at the 33rd Research Conference on Communication, Information, and Internet Policy, Arlington, Virginia, USA (23 September 2005).
• "Advocates of Wi-Fi in Cities Learn Art of Politics," by Glenn Fleishman, New York Times, 19 January 2006 (registration required).
• Three reports in one PDF from the Center for Neighborhood Technology: "Community Wireless Networks: Cutting Edge Technology for Internet Access"; "What We Learned: A Guide to Thinking About Community Wireless Networks"; and "Building Community Wireless Networks: A How To Do It Manual" (59 pages total).

Technology

• Short-Range Wireless Communications: Emerging Technologies and Applications, by Rolf Kraemer and Marcos Katz, Wiley-WWRF Series (2009)
• "The Birth of Spread Spectrum: How 'The Bad Boy of Music' and 'The Most Beautiful Girl in the World' Catalyzed a Wireless Revolution - in 1941," by Anna Couey, Harvard University Department of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 1997. See also "Hedy Lamarr, George Antheil and the Secret Communications System Patent," by Chris Beaumont (George Antheil's son), 2000; and " 'Not Just Another Pretty Face' - starring: Hedy Lamarr" - a bibliography by Courtney Baalman, 1999.
• "New Directions Radio: Licensing Loopholes" by Copthorne Macdonald, Mother Earth News, September/October 1978.
• "Proposal for the Creation of the Public Digital Radio Service," a petition drafted and submitted to the US Federal Communications Commission by Donald L. Stoner, W6TNS (20 October 1985). The FCC solicited comments on this groundbreaking proposal in Rule-Making number RM-5241. The text is still online in the 2 February 1987 edition of Fidonet News, pages 5-16.
• "Personal Radio," by Robert Horvitz, Whole Earth Review, spring 1986.
• "Exploding the Myth that Unlicensed Spectrum Means Unreliable Service," Motorola Inc. white paper, March 2007. See also Motorola's page for Unlicensed Business Radio products operating in the CB and "walkie-talkie" bands.
• US Federal Communications Commission, "Report and Order in Docket 83-114: Authorization of Spread Spectrum Systems Under Parts 15 and 90 of the FCC Rules and Regulations," 18 June 1985.
• US Federal Communications Commission, "First Report and Order in Gen. Doc. No. 87-389: Revision of Part 15 of the Rules regarding the operation of radio frequency devices without an individual license," 4 FCC Rcd 3494 (released 18 April 1989).
• "Trends In Unlicensed Spread Spectrum Devices," Powerpoint presentation by the FCC Office of Engineering and Technology for a meeting of the US Federal Communications Commission, 10 May 2001.
• "The Future of WLAN," by Michael Ritter, ACM Queue, May 2003, pages 18-27.
• "What Spectrum Shortage?" by George Gilder, Forbes Magazine, 27 May 1991, page 324-332; reprinted in the [US] Congressional Record, 20 September 1991.
• "The New Rule of the Wireless" by George Gilder, Forbes Magazine, 29 March 1993.
• "Is the UHF Frequency Shortage a Self Made Problem?" by Paul Baran, Marconi Centennial Symposium, Bologna, Italy (23 June 1995).
• "Spectrum Sharing Through Dynamic Channel Assignment for Open Access to Personal Communications Services," by Hector Salgado, Marvin Sirbu and Jon Peha, Proceedings of the IEEE International Communications Conference (ICC), June 1995, pages 417-22.
• "Spectrum Sharing Without Licenses: Opportunities and Dangers," by Durga P. Satapathy and Jon M. Peha, Proceedings of the 1996 Telecommunications Policy Research Conference, Section 3, pages 15-29.
• "Game Theory and Wireless Networks" - papers written by members of the Mobile and Portable Radio Research Group at Virginia Tech University (many of these papers concern cognitive radio and ways to minimize interference). Also online: Powerpoints from a summer course on game theory and wireless networks.
• "A Resource Allocation Game with Application to Wireless Spectrum," by Aurel A. Lazar and Nemo Semret, Technical Report CU/CTR/TR 456-96-22, Center for Telecommunications Research, Columbia University, New York (USA), October 1996.
• Jon M. Peha's "Wireless Coexistence and Spectrum-Sharing" webpage.
• "Co-existence of Dissimilar Wireless Systems," by Jay Kruys, 3 December 2003 (WiFi Alliance archive).
• "Design Challenges of Open Spectrum Access," by K. V. Katsaros, P. A. Frangoudis, G. C. Polyzos and G. Karlsson, Proc. IEEE PIMRC 2008, Cognitive Radio and Networks Workshop (CRNETS 2008), Cannes, France, September 2008
• "Interference Reducing Networks," by James O. Neel, Rekha Menon, Allen B. MacKenzie, Jeffrey H. Reed and Robert P. Gilles; presented at the Second International Conference on Cognitive Radio Oriented Wireless Networks and Communications (Orlando, Florida, USA, 31 July - 3 August 2007).
• "Ultimate Dynamic Spectrum Allocation via User-Central Wireless Systems," by Seyed A. Zekavat and Xiukui Li, Journal of Communications, Vol.1, No. 1 (April 2006), pages 60-8.
• "A brief history of Wi-Fi," The Economist, 10 June 2004.
• "When everything connects,", The Economist, 26 April 2007: "...the danger is surely too much regulation, not too little. It is hard for anyone - politicians most of all - to picture how wireless will be used, just as it was with electric motors and microprocessors, two earlier stand-alone technologies that have been built into a plethora of devices. Wireless technology will become a part of objects in the next 50 years rather as electric motors appeared in everything from eggbeaters to elevators in the first half of the 20th century and computers colonised all kinds of machinery from cars to coffee machines in the second half..."
• "De-Regulating the Spectrum - Implications for Technology" by Val A. Jervis, IEE Communications Engineer, December 2003 - January 2004.
• "Unlicensed Devices General Technical Requirements - Detailed Material," by Joe Dichoso, Senior Electronics Engineer, FCC Equipment Authorization Branch, October 2005.
• "Understand wireless short-range devices for global license-free systems," by Austin Harney and Conor O'Mahony, RF Design Line, 7 March 2007.
• "Wireless Hotspots: Current Challenges and Future Directions," by Anand Balachandran, Geoffrey M. Voelker and Paramvir Bahl, Mobile Networks and Applications, Vol. 10, pages 265-274 (2005).
• "Towards an Architecture for Efficient Spectrum Slicing," by Suman Banerjee, Arunesh Mishra, Vladimir Brik, Vivek Shrivastava and Victor Bahl - presented at HotMobile 2007 (Tucson, Arizona, USA, February 2007).
• whyless.com - an EU funded study (2001-2004) of an "open mobile access network" based on UWB and dynamic tradable infrastructure access rights.
• Alireza Attar and Oliver Holland's Cognitive Radio blog. Founded in June 2008, the main contributors recently announced that they no longer have time to update the blog regularly, but the previous postings (which closely parallel the openspectrum.info newsfeed) are still worth reading.
• "Beyond WiFi: Airwaves used in creative, lucrative - and unregulated - ways," by Sarah Lai Stirland, The Seattle Times, 10 June 2003.
• "The benefits of license-exempt spectrum: point-to-point, point-to-multipoint or mesh?" by David Sumi, Telecommunications Americas, June 2004.
• "Darpa looks past Ethernet, IP nets," by Rick Merritt, EE Times, 26 April 2004: "Darpa is pushing toward a world of ultralow-cost, low-power, ad hoc mesh networks. The programs are part of a broad military drive toward ubiquitous computing based on next-generation networks, including RFID and wireless sensor nets... An 802.11b network could take as many as 12,480 bits and 57 acknowledgments to send an 80-bit data packet, a 0.65 percent efficiency rating. 'This is five orders of magnitude from what we can do. This is like selling cars that get 10 inches per gallon,' Marshall said..."
• "Deploying License-Exempt WiMAX Solutions," Intel Corporation, 2005.
• Dynamic Spectrum Access in Open Spectrum Wireless Networks" by Yiping Xing, R. Chandramouli, Stefan Mangold and Sai Shankar, in "Special issue on 4G Wireless Systems," IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, 2006.
• "Control the home with a wireless network," by Thomas Jorgensen and Niels Johansen, Zensys A/S, Wireless Net DesignLine, 2 August 2005
• "Estimating the ZigBee transmission-range ISM band," by Shreharsha Rao, Electronic Design News, 24 MAy 2007
• "WLAN Interference to IEEE802.15.4," Zensys White Paper, 16 March 2007 - claims to show that Zigbee is seriously degraded by WiFi networks operating in the same residential spaces (based on tests performed by the developer of a rival technology, Z-wave).
• "Ultra-Low-Power Cell Phones," by Kevin Bullis, MIT Technology Review, 16 May 2006.
• "The Benefits of 60 GHz Unlicensed Wireless Communications," by Chris Koh, presented at the FCC's 2004 Wireless Broadband Forum (Washington, DC USA).
• "LightWave" Solar Powered WiFi Access Point - specifications and related products from Lumin.
• Wireless Networking in the Developing World - "a practical guide to planning and building low-cost telecommunications infrastructure," by Corinna 'Elektra' Aichele, Rob Flickenger, Carlo Fonda, Jim Forster, Ian Howard, Tomas Krag and Marco Zennaro, January 2006, ISBN 1-4116-7837-0. Downloadable in English, French or Spanish.
• RONJA (Reasonable Optical Near Joint Access) - Karel Kulhavý's build-it-yourself free-space optical link technology "with a current range of 1.4km and a communication speed of 10Mbps full duplex." Designs are released under the GNU Free Documentation License and the frequencies used are unlicensed everywhere. The Ronja mailing list is for news and discussion.
• "Regulatory status for using RFID in the UHF spectrum," by Henri Barthel, GS1 EPCGlobal, 18 March 2009. A global survey, updated quarterly.
• Low Frequency Wireless Telecommunications and Shared Frequency-Allocation Links compiled by Gary Peterson.
• "Battle Of The Networking Stars, Part One: ZigBee vs. Z-Wave," by Robert E. Calem, Digital Connect 3 October 2005.
• "Wifi-Hog - 2003" by Jonah Brucker-Cohen: "Wi-Fi Hog is personal system for a laptop or portable computer that enables people to gain complete control over a public access wireless network. The idea is presented as an alternative to the utopian vision of wireless networks being open, shared, and utilitarian for everyone. This project is a cautionary one, but could be used as a tactical media tool for protest situations..."
• "A Channel Access Scheme for Large Dense Packet Radio Networks" by Timothy J. Shepard, preprint from the Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM-96 (August 1996). Shepard's PhD thesis - Decentralized Channel Management in Scalable Multihop Spread-Spectrum Packet Radio Networks - is available in gzipped Postscript format here.
• "Cognitive Radio Information Center," maintained by the IEEE Standards Association's Coordinating Committee 41 (Dynamic Spectrum Access Networks)
• Report and Order: In the Matter of Facilitating Opportunities for Flexible, Efficient, and Reliable Spectrum Use Employing Cognitive Radio Technologies, ET Docket No. 03-108, US Federal Communications Commission, adopted 10 March 2005. (See especially the discussions of "Automatic frequency selection by unlicensed devices" beginning at paragraph 72, and "Interruptible Spectrum Leasing" beginning at paragraph 80.)
• "Cognitive Radio, Spectrum and Radio Resource Management," edited by George Dimitrakopoulos, Panagiotis Demestichas, David Grandblaise, Klaus Mößner, Jim Hoffmeyer and Jijun Luo; Wireless World Research Forum, Working Group 6 White Paper, 2004 (69 pages).
• "CORVUS: A Cognitive Radio Approach for Usage of Virtual Unlicensed Spectrum," by Robert W. Brodersen (UC Berkeley), Adam Wolisz (TU Berlin), Danijela Cabric (UC Berkeley), Shridhar Mubaraq Mishra (UC Berkeley), and Daniel Willkomm (TU Berlin), Multiple-Carrier Multiple-Antenna Systems Group, Berkeley Wireless Research Center, 29 July 2004
• The Wireless Internet Opportunity for Developing Countries - Wireless Internet Institute (December 2003, 146 pages).
• "Short-Range Wireless Connectivity: A Complementary Comparison" by Puneet Gupta, a short tutorial on the relationship between Bluetooth, HomeRF, IrDA and Wi-Fi standards for the Wireless Developer Network, 2002.
• "Working Towards the Peaceful Coexistence of Wireless PANs, LANs, and WANs," by Jim Lansford (chairman, IEEE802.19 Coexistence Technical Advisory Group), paper presented at the Communications Design Conference, San Jose, California, September 2002 (9 pages).
• Positioning of DECT in relation to other radio access technologies, DECT Forum Whitepaper, 30 June 2002 (1541kb PDF, 80 pages).
• Voice Over Wireless LANs: Freedom for the Desk Set" by Frank Bulk, Network Computing. 10 November 2005.
• "Global Markets: Low-Power Spread-Spectrum Transmitter Approvals" by Andrew Cutler and Chris Zombolas, in Compliance Engineering magazine's 2003 Annual Reference Guide.
• "The Universe of License Exempt Wireless," The Cook Report (October-November 2003). Only the summary, conclusion, table of contents and list of contributors are free online.
• "Deploying License-Exempt WiMAX Solutions," Intel White Paper, 2004 (15 pages).
• "Development of Wireless Local Area Networks in OECD Countries" by Atsushi Umino, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 16 April 2003 (45 pages).
• "WiFi and the Wireless Local Loop: A Brief Comparison of the Technologies for Authorisation and Licensing Bodies" by Philip Kalmus, NERA Economic Consulting (June 2003, 16 pages).
• "Compatibility between radiocommunication & ISM systems in the 2.4 GHz frequency band - Final Report to HMSO" by John Burns, Richard Rudd and Zoran Spasojevic, Aegis Systems Ltd., 1999.
• "Indoor Wireless Communications: Capacity and Coexistence on the Unlicensed Bands," by Leslie Ann Rusch, Connected and Extended PC Lab, Intel Architecture Group, published in the Intel Technology Journal, Volume 5, Issue 3 (August 2001).
• Demand for use of the 2.4GHz ISM Band - Final Report, Spectrum Management Advisory Group, by Helena Leeson, Paul Hansell, John Burns and Zoran Spasojevic, Aegis Spectrum Engineering Ltd., Document 1215/AE/ISM2/R/2, 31 July 2000.
• "IEEE*USA Position: Improving Spectrum Usage Through Cognitive Radio Technology" (13 November 2003).
• The Shared Spectrum Company.
• The Wireless Internet Assigned Names Authority.
• "Software Radio - Cognitive Radio: Wireless Architectures for the 21st Century" by Joseph Mitola III.
• "Software Radio: Implications for Wireless Services, Industry Structure, and Public Policy" by William Lehr, Fuencisla Merino and Sharon Eisner Gillett, MIT Program on Internet and Telecoms Convergence (20 August 2002). A more in-depth treatment is found in Fuencisla Merino's masters thesis, Market Impact of Software Radio: Benefits and Barriers (MIT, June 2002), 169 pages.
• "Software-defined radio tunes in" by David Marsh, EDN (3 March 2005).
• "Spectrum Policy Impacts of SDR," Intel Corporation, presented at the Asia-Pacific Telecommunity Wireless Forum, 17-18 February 2006 (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)
• The GNU Software Radio Project (GNU Radio).
• PicoRadio at the Berkeley Wireless Research Center.
• "Adaptive Spectrum Access: Using the Full Spectrum Space" by William D. Horne, MITRE Corporation (2003, 15 pages).
• The Wireless Ad Hoc Networks homepage at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology.
• "A Brief History of UWB Communications" by Robert J. Fontana, President, Multispectral Solutions Inc.
• Notice of Proposed Rule Making and Order: In the Matter of Facilitating Opportunities for Flexible, Efficient, and Reliable Spectrum Use Employing Cognitive Radio Technologies (ET Docket No. 03-108) and Authorization and Use of Software Defined Radios (ET Docket No. 00-47 - Terminated) US Federal Communications Commission, released 30 December 2003. This proposes to allow license exempt "cognitive" radios to operate in the ISM bands at higher power than other unlicensed devices, if the occupancy of these bands is low (e.g. in rural areas).
• Notice of Inquiry and Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in the Matter of Establishment of an Interference Temperature Metric to Quantify and Manage Interference and to Expand Available Unlicensed Operation in Certain Fixed, Mobile and Satellite Frequency Bands, FCC 03-289 (ET Docket No. 03-237, 28 November 2003).
• Part-15.org - portal run by a US-based organization of license-exempt wireless Internet Service Providers which hosts the WISPCON conference twice a year.
• "The Future of Radio Spectrum Policy" by Peter Pisch, Intel Corp.
• "Intel restrains Radio Free vision," from Wireless Watch, 16 August 2004. Second thoughts about what is possible and practical.
• SPECTRUM MANAGEMENT: Better Knowledge Needed to Take Advantage of Technologies that May Improve Spectrum Efficiency, US General Accounting Office, GAO-04-666, 42 pages (May 2004).
• "A Historical Perspective on the FCC Rules for Digital Devices and a Look to the Future," by Art Wall, from the Record of the 2004 IEEE International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility, volume 2, pages 462-467.
• "A Multidisciplinary Study of Competition in Unlicensed Networks" by Olav Queseth, Kungliga Tekniska högskolan (Royal Institute of Technology), Sweden, 2003.