Technology-dependent commons: The example of frequency spectrum for broadcasting in Europe in the 1920s

Nina Wormbs

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International Journal of the Commons
Vol 5, No 1 (2011)
92-109

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• Publié par: Scisocscriber
• Publié le: 10 mai 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 17
• Langue: English

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International Journal of the Commons Vol. 5, no 1 February 2011, pp. 92–109 Publisher: Igitur publishing URL:http://www.thecommonsjournal.org URN:NBN:NL:UI:10-1-101335 Copyright: content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License ISSN: 1875-0281 Technology-dependent commons: the example of frequency spectrum for broadcasting in Europe in the 1920s Nina Wormbs Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden [e-mail] Abstract: The aim of this paper is to test the design principles, identified as crucial for institutions governing long enduring common pool resources, on the use of the electromagnetic spectrum, a peculiar resource in many respects. The case is the medium wave band for broadcasting in Europe in the 1920s. As the spectrum is a resource dependent on technology for its use, the aim is also to investigate the influence of technology on the governing institutions. Key words: Allocation, broadcasting, commons, electromagnetic spectrum, frequencies, history of technology Acknowledgements: The research for this paper was carried out within the project “Behind a veil of technology: Politics and culture in the frequency allocations for broadcasting in Europe”, financed by the Swedish Research Council. I would like to thank Nil Disco, Helena Durnova, Christian Henrich- Franke, Kimmo Eriksson, Arne Kaijser, Suzanne Lommers, and Jennifer Spohrer for useful comments on an earlier version. I am also very grateful for the clarifications and improvements brought about by the readings of Erling Berge, Eda Kranakis and an anonymous referee. 1. Introduction They are all around us these days: radio waves. We have learned to make use of them in a diversity of services, stretching from radar and air-traffic control over mobile telephony to satellite communication and Wi-Fi networks. It is hard to imagine a modern society without them, as they are integrated into so many different technologies on which we depend heavily. Recently, it has also come to the attention of the general public that radio waves are a scarce resource making The frequency spectrum for broadcasting in Europe in the 1920s 93 up the electromagnetic spectrum. This realisation has partly been due to the fact that pricing strategies for spectrum access have been put in place, not infrequently with the argument of scarcity. The underlying idea of this marketisation of the spectrum is that supply and demand can balance scarcity and result in the scare resource being used for what is most highly valued. Whatever the consequences of such a paradigm, it is clear that a price tag makes the resource more visible. This is also true for an invisible resource like the spectrum. Whereas pricing of the spectrum is a fairly new phenomenon, the scarcity of the spectrum is not. On the contrary, as early as the 1920s the demand for radio waves was higher than the supply, leading to what contemporaries called “chaos in the ether”. The new communication service that came to be known as broadcasting soon became extremely popular, and transmitters mushroomed in (almost) every corner of Europe. However, the lack of coordination and control quickly made listening difficult. The situation can be compared to a cocktail party; in the early evening it is easy to carry on a conversation, but as the room fills, listening becomes difficult as people raise their voices in order to be heard. Yet within a few years order was restored to the European “ether”. One of the aims of this paper is to explain how that happened. Another is to understand why it worked. One way of approaching this issue is to assume that the radio spectrum is a common pool good (Ostrom 2005, 24) where two activities are going on. One is the transmission of content and the other is the reception of that content. As production increases, crowding occurs. The radio spectrum is at this point in fact an open access commons in the meaning that Hardin (1968) gave it. This crowding is peculiar since it takes place both in a geographical dimension with transmitters close in space, and in a frequency dimension with broadcasting on adjacent frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum. The production process creates externalities of interference that effectively remove frequencies from the available pool. The central question of this paper is to analyse the institutional design that enabled a resolution of the externalities resulting from the technology- dependent production process. I propose to investigate whether the design principles identified for institutions of long-enduring common-pool resources are also relevant in this case (Ostrom 1990). Moreover, I would like to analyse if and how technology is connected to the institutions created. The design principles are important both as analytical instruments for understanding the past and present and as tools for practically managing resources. The principles originally formulated by Ostrom (1990) more than 20 years ago have passed many “tests” and Ostrom (2005) suggested only minor revisions. One of the contributions of the present paper is to test the model on a new type of resource, the electromagnetic spectrum. The identified design principles are eight in number, even though they regulate more than eight conditions. Briefly, the first principle demands that the resource and those belonging to the group of users, or appropriators, have clearly defined boundaries. The second principle identifies the need for the rules of appropriation 94 Nina Wormbs to be tuned to varying local conditions. Third, those affected by the rules should generally also be able to modify them. The fourth principle states that those monitoring appropriators’ behaviour should either be the appropriators themselves or accountable to them. The possibility of imposing sanctions on rule breakers has been identified as a fifth principle, and access to cheap conflict-resolution mechanisms constitutes the sixth. The seventh design principle advocates the right of external bodies to organize. Finally, the eighth principle, which primarily concerns complex resources, identifies the possibility for multiple levels of governance, introducing the term “nested enterprises” to refer to such situations (Ostrom 1990, 90). In the following, radio service is introduced with some historical background. Then follows the case in point, which is a discussion of the institutional history of that portion of the spectrum used for broadcasting in Europe, identifying and treating the design principles listed above, as they pertain to this resource. In the discussion, the relation between the institutions and the technology is explored, and the paper ends with a short comment on the market paradigm. 2. An introduction to radio communication The history of broadcasting has been told a number of times and is not the primary focus of this article. However, a few developments that are crucial to the arguments 1in this paper need to be described. Radio technology, or wireless, as it was often called in reference to the already existing technology of wired communication, emerged during the second half of the 1890s, with successful long-range transmissions in the mid-1890s. Its usefulness was soon realised and as early as 1903 the first international conference on radio took place in Berlin. It was followed by another conference three years later, by which time the number of participating countries had risen from nine to 29. Delegates from most of the signed the Convention and the annexed Radio Regulation, which provided more detailed rules for better communication (Codding 1952). The increasing number of coastal stations and the use of radio for maritime services eventually called for another conference, which took place in 1912 in London. The conference took place just a couple of months after the Titanic had sunk, which served as a forceful argument for the even further extended use and regulation of radio (Douglas 1987). Broadcasting was introduced gradually from 1920 onwards and quickly became very popular and influential (Douglas 1987). Today, broadcasting is probably still the best known of all radio services, even though mobile telephony might be catching up in parts of the world. The great interest of the early days led to a boom in new radio stations. However, the Radio Conference in London had limited bearing on broadcasting, even though there were articles stating that no radio station should interfere with any other station. Thus, when broadcasters 1 Historians have taken little interest in the radio spectrum with a few notable examples: (Aitken 1994; Henrich-Franke 2006; Spohrer 2008).The frequency spectrum for broadcasting in Europe in the 1920s 95 spread over the continents, broadcasters used the wave lengths that seemed available and which best served their interests, normally between 300 and 500 m, corresponding to 600 kHz–1 MHz in what we today call the Medium Frequency 2Band. The result was severe crowding of the used part of the radio spectrum. The early efforts to cope with this crowding are the focus of this article. 3. The Geneva plan of 1925 and the principle of boundaries Very soon interference was recognised as one of the biggest problems of broadcasting. The Swiss radio enthusiast Maurice Rambert, who was the first Swiss to have a permit to broadcast in his country, started his service in October 1922. The following year he proposed an international meeting, which took place in Geneva in April 1924. One year later, the International Broadcasting Union was founded, or UIR (Union Internationale de Radiophonie) as it was more often called, French being the working language of the Union (Briggs 1961; Spohrer 2008). Representatives from broadcasting companies from 10 nations, all European, were present when the UIR was established in Geneva on the 3rd and 4th of April 1925. The fou