Toward Automated Enforcement of Radio Interference

In many countries, sharing has become a significant approach to problems of spectrum allocation and assignment. As this approach moves from concept to reality, it is reasonable to expect an increase in interference or usage conflict events between sharing parties. Scholars such as Coase, Demsetz, Stigler, and others have argued that appropriate enforcement is critical to successful contracts (such as spectrum sharing agreements) and Polinsky, Shavell, and others have analyzed enforcement mechanisms in general. While many ex-ante measures may be used, reducing the social costs of ex-ante enforcement means shifting the balance more toward ex-post measures. Ex post enforcement requires detection, data collection, and adjudication methods. At present, these methods are ad hoc (operating in a decentralized way between parties) or fairly costly (e.g., relying on the FCC Enforcement Bureau). The research presented in this paper is the culmination of an NSF-funded inquiry into how and what enforcement functions can be automated.