Market Based Spectrum Pricing 2011

This course will provide a comprehensive understanding of market based spectrum pricing.

The first section of the course will introduce and reviews why spectrum is such a limited and valuable natural resource, which needs active management. Further examination of the topic will cover key spectrum management methods, including administrative traditional ‘command and control’ approach, unlicensed spectrum, spectrum trading, pricing and leasing, as well as the role of the regulator.

AiP as it is arguably the most practiced quasi-market based spectrum pricing approach, drawing from the core principle of the opportunity cost of spectrum. The second part of the course will draw from the core principle of the opportunity cost of spectrum, whilst also covering spectrum pricing, focusing administrative fees/prices, market-based prices, administered-incentive pricing (AIP), cost recovery – all approaches to pricing for spectrum.

The third covers section will examine AIP in detail, including secondary markets and approaches, spectrum trading and leasing and approaches to make secondary markets to work better including spectrum liberalisation.

The fourth section covers spectrum auctions, different types of auctions, rules and procedures for auctions and auctions in practice (including tools to facilitate the auction). It also introduces the notion of spectrum metrics which could be used to track the economic utilisation of spectrum. It also touches on band management, and how it may drive up economic utilisation and efficiency of spectrum.

The fifth section draws from all the preceding sections in order to discuss trade offs (amongst the NRA’s duties, competition, innovation, coverage, etc) for spectrum allocation across key sectors such as broadband, broadcasting, emergency services. It shows how these all contribute towards the development of spectrum allocation policy, pulling together all key strands of good policy formulation.