'A Victory for Free Speech': WBAI is back on the air

[Igel]

10. It's the government that sells the rights to portions of the spectrum.

Otherwise, the only limit on who could broadcast how far would be who could afford a transmitter.

If 10,000 people in NYC wanted to broadcast in the FM and all 10k set up transmitters, then the airwaves would belong "to us the people," but 10,000 FM channels would have them stomping all over each other. Currently the Internet tells me that FM stations assume a 200 MHz bandwidth, so only about 100 stations can fit on the FM spectrum.

Stations could bundle and go digital to allow signals to be multiplexed, but that means all the analog radios out there would be SOL. Don't know if they could handle 100 stations per frequency. But if that could, 25k would-be broadcasters would certainly collapse the system.

BTW, it's easy for non-profits/educational organizations to set up 100 W broadcasting in the FM. It's good for up to a very spotty 15 miles. In NYC, with all the buildings, 2 miles is probably hit or miss.

Strictly speaking, the only reason that the airwaves "belong to us the people" is because the government said so and asserted its right over what amounted to a free space that was there for the taking. If nobody owns it, then anybody can stake a claim but would have no basis for defending it in court. That would get ugly. So the Big Dog claimed it, regulated it, licensed its use, and from time to time decides to repurpose it when some lobbyist or politicians decides s/he has a Better Use. The original impetus wasn't, "Oh, gee, there's new space, lets get in early and regulate it" but because big boys wanted legal protection. Note that selling off what's free apparently brings in a fair chunk of change. Far more than it costs to actually regulate the industry.