2009 Research Summary
Regulating Shared Spectrum: The Intersection of Technology and Policy
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Anant Sahai, Kristen Ann Woyach and Venkatesh Saligrama1
National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship
Wireless spectrum is currently under-utilized and the core reason appears to be a chasm between the time/space scales under which spectrum is allocated/licensed and the time/space scales under which it can be used. Cognitive (opportunistic) use has been suggested as one way to fill in these gaps while sub-licensing and real-time auctions is another. Both of these would require a shift in the legal/regulatory approach since the current device-certification-based model is based on allocations happening at the same scale as device lifetimes.
We are exploring the economics/game-theory of more dynamic approaches to regulation as well as the technical prerequisites required to support this wireless revolution. A key question is how to partition functionality across the legal, regulatory, and standards layers.
1Boston University