Though I’m eager to learn more, my first impression is that President Obama has just made a very wise decision on spectrum policy. Jared A. Favole of Dow Jones writes:

The memorandum directs federal agencies to find ways to free up 500 megahertz of airwaves for consumer mobile broadband services over the next 10 years. While the directive applies to all federal agencies and may take years to fully realize, there are some areas that may have spectrum ripe for being freed. One such agency is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, according to an administration official.
Lawrence Summers, director of the White House National Economic Council, was expected to detail the presidential memorandum in a speech Monday.
“This initiative will catalyze private sector investment, contribute to economic growth, and help to create hundreds of thousands of jobs,” Summers is expected to say, according to excerpts of his remarks.

Much depends on how the White House follows through, but so far I’m encouraged.

There is a real question about whether or not spectrum needs to be allocated at all. In 1998, Yochai Benkler and Lawrence Lessig wrote a short essay in The New Republic that included the following:

What if it were no longer truethat spectrum had to be allocated? What if the spectrum couldbe shared by all rather than set aside for a narrow class oflicensees? What if the FCC, CBS, or Bell Atlantic Mobilebecame unnecessary?A growing body of research suggests exactly this. Using avariety of strategies, mostly known as spread spectrum,researchers in wireless technology have begun to demonstratethe viability of systems that allow many users to share the sameslice of spectrum without interfering with one another. Just aspacket-switching is replacing circuit-switched telephony,spread-spectrum techniques, these researchers argue, couldreplace traditional broadcasting. And just as tcp/ip protocolstell packets on the Internet where to go, and how not to getmixed up or interfere with packets carrying other peoples’messages, spread-spectrum technologies could use one of anumber of protocols to avoid collision and congestion inwireless communication.
The implications of this change are profound. Instead ofdefined frequency ranges over which someone–a licensee oran owner–gets to decide who communicates what, and towhom, the government would permit anyone using certainkinds of equipment (basically a computer with a wirelessmodem) to send and receive whatever he or she wants, overbroad swaths of spectrum. Instead of a market in spectrum, wewould have a market in efficient wireless modems. Instead ofthe government and a small group of companies dictating howwireless communications will be used, we would have everyuser deciding for her- or himself whether to use a computer totalk to a friend, watch a movie, or play an online game. Inother words, instead of a few railroad companies deciding whogets to go where, and when, people would buy cars and gowherever they wanted to go.

Something like this vision has come to fruition over the intervening years. But it’s not clear that the regulatory regime has kept up to speed with how the technology has evolved. Tim Lee did a terrific job of explaining the relevant issues back in April.