BBN Technologies

The assignment of radio spectrum for specific uses and to specific users is a complex activity, typically performed centrally by one or more agencies in each country. The FCC does this in the U.S. for civilian uses. There is little useful radio spectrum that has not already been assigned. In spite of this apparent scarcity of spectrum, the actual use of spectrum is quite sparse. The goal of Next Generation Communications is the dynamic use of spectrum based on sensing actual use, rather than merely on static assignments. BBN has a major role in this program as the developer of the architecture for XG. One of BBN's significant developments is a language framework for expressing spectrum policy in a machine-readable form. This enables dynamic users of spectrum to adapt to the various policies that may apply to different portions of the spectrum.