Gilder favors innovation and change over state-supported monopolies.
His aim is to push policies that would open up the resources of spectrum to
the widest range of innovators. A spectrum commons would do just this. Just
as the Internet did, it would open up a resource for the common use of a
wide range of innovators. These many innovators would experiment with
ways of using the network that none of us could now imagine. They would
fuel a second and possibly far more important wave of innovation than the
initial wave of the Internet that we have seen so far.

///\\\

Liberating spectrum from the control of government is an important
first step to innovation in spectrum use. On this point there is broad agree-
ment, from those who push for a spectrum commons to those, like Hazlett,
who push for a fully propertized spectrum market. All agree that the only
thing that government-controlled spectrum has produced is an easy oppor-
tunity for the old to protect themselves against the new. Innovation moves
too slowly when it must constantly ask permission from politically con-
trolled agencies. The solution is to eliminate the need to ask permission, by
removing these controllers at least.

Liberating spectrum from the control of the market is a second and much
more controversial step. Hazlett and others insist that the rationing of a mar-
ket is necessary, both to avoid overuse and to provide a sufficient incentive
to improve spectrum efficiency. A spectrum commons will invite tragedy
too quickly.

For the moment, we can defer resolving the differences between these
two positions, to emphasize their common view: Both want a world where
the power of controllers to stifle innovation has been eliminated. Both
agree that government control over spectrum is simply a way for the old to
protect themselves against the new. Both therefore push for a radical change
in spectrum management policies, to free innovators from the need to
please politicians before they have the right to innovate.

[[84]]

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