FedComsCommission

The Communications Act of 1934 (which is unconstitutional) was signed into law during one of the most profound eras of government expansion in the nation's history: FDR. This created the socialistic FCC and unfortunately expanded the power for the federal government to regulate the airwaves under the illusion of "interstate commerce" which is a Constitutional farce.

At the time prior to the Act there were many broadcasters utilizing the airwaves for both commercial and non-commercial purposes. Ideally a specific frequency and mode of transmission on that frequency would be "homesteaded" similar to how the westward expansion of the US once was. Each frequency would become property of the first to establish regular use.

As a matter of fact this is actually what began to happen until governments acted upon their communistic tendencies of the era and seized the frequencies for their own purposes. For some reason the idea that the RF spectrum as a resource which must be nationalized is prevalent. Unfortunately this idea that all of society owns the Spectrum reduces the ability for that resource to be exploited in an efficient manner.

Had the majority of the spectrum remained privately owned the owners could sell or lease use of their frequency in the same way that any owner of property would. Any other entity that interfered with that owner's use of their slice of the spectrum would be subject to criminal charges for either trespassing or denying the use of that band to the rightful owner.

When the federal government unconstitutionally interferes with the natural course of commerce the result is just what we have here; a quagmire. But it's more than that. Ultimately Google and MSFT, and Motorola etc will win out over the entertainment industry largely because we do not have as much lobbying power as they do. This is a very good example of how large and unconstitutional government actually favors big business. If the federal government had simply kept itself within its Constitutional bounds, the natural course of commerce would've been allowed to play out, and whatever technological solutions would've evolved over the last century surely would be better than the situation that we have before us now.