Research Projects
Regulating shared spectrum: the intersection of technology and policy
Anant Sahai, Kristen Ann Woyach and Venkatesh Saligrama1
National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship
Wireless spectrum is currently underutilized 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 sublicensing 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