Jonathan Rochkind <jrochkin@cs.oberlin.edu> wrote about why amateur frequencies should be available for a peoples Internet access: The problem with the radio spectrum is that it is not free, it is a limited resource. If the allowed use of some portion of the spectrum became too easy, too useful, too profitable, then that portion would soon become overloaded with traffic. That is one reason why hams cannot use their frequencies for any kind of commercial transaction. Once there could be people making money from the airwaves, they would quickly crowd out the amateurs. If the government is going to subsidize public access to communications internetworks, they would do much better to subsidize a technology that is better suited to point-to-point switched routing. Of course, that may be in the form of broadcast electromagnetic signals at line-of-sight frequencoes, whether something like the current cellular telephone network with higher frequencies and smaller cells, or lots of small satellites, or it could involve subsidizing lots of fiber all over the place. It is the case that there is a lot of pressure for the FCC to make money privatizing sections of the spectrum. The recent auction of licenses for newly allocated spectrum earned them much more than was predicted, and will make it that much harder for hams to hold on to much of the spectrum that they already have. -- sidney markowitz <sidney@apple.com> KD6AVY