Who 'owns' the radio airwaves?

Question

I'm curious at what point, and by whom was it determined the airwaves were property?

Answer 1

The people  (in the US) with oversight by the FCC. And that's the way it should be.

BUT with the Telecommunications act of 1996 allowing consolidation of radio, it's more like the shareholders in the big groups - who are no doubt regretting every share they bought right about now.

Couldn't happen to a nicer group of guys ;<)

-a guy named duh

Answer 2

I'll give you a more simple answer.

The airwaves, or "spectrum" as it is more colloquially known, is owned by the people (i.e. the government runs it) and is administered in the US by the FCC. There are international agreements in place which make it so different countries don't interfere with each others signals.

Here's the Wikipedia article about the FCC, it breaks it down in more detail than I ever could:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fcc

Answer 3

In international law, I'm not sure it ever has been. After all, "owning" the ether would be rather like owning fresh air, wouldn't it?

In practical terms, though, the use of frequencies which can be picked up across international boundaries- which would include AM and Shortwave, though not usually FM radio (TV is an exception) is governed by international agreement and something called the International Telecommunications Union, which holds administrative conferences every now and then to determine which countries can use which frequencies.  This acts a bit like a "highway code" of the airwaves, since in practice it's impossible to police and stop broadcasters in other nations hi-jacking and/or jamming frequencies if they choose, and this frequently happened during the "cold war" in particular.

Within the UK, the radio spectrum used to be considered, theoretically at least, open to all free of charge, until probably the late nineties and early noughties.  Nevertheless, from the early days of radio, it was illegal to broadcast from within British territorial limits without a licence to do so from the government, via various authorities over the years starting with the Post Office. This was why the pirates of the 1960s came into being, operating outside British territorial waters and thus legal, until the 1967 Marine Broadcasting and Other Offences Act made it illegal for a British subject, advertiser or supplier to trade with or broadcast from the pirate ships.

The current arrangement is that every broadcaster, including the BBC, as well as many private radio users such as police and fire services, can use the frequencies allocated to them but in some cases have to pay for the use of this space. Other frequencies, such as those for CB and Amateur Radio, are now free of charge.

The allocation and charging of frequencies is now operated by Ofcom, the Office of Communications, who will be responsible for the "sale" of the analogue frequencies freed up when digital TV switchover is completed in 2012.