Regulation requirements of advanced spectrum exploitation technologies

Even today many papers and presentations make the claim that there is sufficient spectrum available for all new and future services, if only the spectrum could be used more efficiently, inter alia through additional flexibility in the assignment of frequencies to those systems that need the spectrum at a certain point in time at a given location. It still seems common understanding that radio regulation and the rules applicable for the deployment of systems and use of radio spectrum resources are by far too rigid and regulators are supposed to be not sufficiently forward looking. The claim goes that regulation needs to be changed in a way that the rules will allow dynamic access and thus increase efficiency that is expected to be facilitated by the extreme flexibility provided by the new dynamic spectrum access, flexible spectrum and cognitive radio system technologies. However, this is, to a large extend a misconception, as regulation has evolved over the last decade, regulators have changed the way spectrum is licensed and the conditions under which it can be used. This paper provides an overview of the current spectrum regulatory landscape covering the developments, in particular in Europe, including the WAPECS and BEM approaches, the impact of E3 on regulation as well as considering the changes that came along globally. The paper also contains an argument on the real changes that are still required to permit the use of state-of-the-art dynamic spectrum assignment or access technologies and approaches.