Re: <nettime> Re: Cellpohones and the cancer of cellspace

[Phil Graham <phil.graham@mailbox.uq.edu.au>]

At 02:37 PM 13/11/00 +0100, you wrote:
>Roberto Verzola wrote:
> >Access to the ether should therefore be a matter of right, but
> >access to cellphone and telephone services are constrained by
> >private property considerations.
>
>While not wanting to get into a pissing match about media history, the
>"ether" has been controlled by international regulations for at least 75
>years. Most of the radio spectrum is reserved for "official" uses and
>commercial or public broadcasting while (with the exception of the babble
>of CB) private use of the "ether" for 2-way communication is restricted to
>licensed (ham) operators - and the license limits communication to little
>more than the exchange of technical data.

A more curious and perhaps disturbing aspect of current moves is that
"official" users as you call them are being "shifted" to less "useful"  
frequencies to make way for the corporates. This not only includes
military and police users (who will no doubt be far more truculent and
expensive to move than the rest), but also more socially beneficial
emergency services.  I don't know what it's like elsewhere, but the
"shifting" of emergency services here (Australia) has been nothing short
of disastrous so far.

The other point, that S. Cisler has made, is that bandwidth is
qualitatively the same as land in terms of its being an economic space --
it can only be held monopolistically. What's being sold in the auctions at
the moment is the first (and only) global space. The fact that nation
states are selling global rights to their electrospace is irrelevant in
some respects. Once owned from "outside", the space will cease to be
national; it will be a supranational, privately owned corporate monopoly
(if it all works out to plan, which it probably won't).

Phil




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