The Spectrum Auctions: Mismanagement,Lost Opportunities and the Undermining of a Critical Communications Conduit

Abstract

The welfare of wireless communications systems in Australia depends on the recognition of the electromagnetic spectrum as a unique and crucial cultural ‘resource’ of an information society. This article suggests that the elusive nature of ‘spectrum’ has resulted in mismanagement and lost opportunities, and that now the rights of local communities to our ‘airwaves’ are under threat, an assertion explored through an analysis of spectrum management in the 2000/01 financial year. I will further demonstrate that the new orthodoxy of ‘spectrum auctions’ reflects our political and economic milieu: the prominence of short-term decision-making and ‘budget politics’, the lack of concern with concentration of media/telecommunications ownership and, moreover, the undermining of cultural and ecological aspects of the Australian communications system. This article argues for the provision of unlicensed ‘spectrum’ for local communities (or bioregions) — a ‘commons’ — to nurture the world of non-commercial communications and the distribution of localised ecological information, both scientific and cultural.