Amateur radio plays a crucial role in communication technology by encouraging experimentation and education. Our community is stifled by outdated FCC regulations in Part 97 that dictate spectrum usage based on primitive concepts and long-defunct technological limitations.  

I urge you to update FCC Part 97 to dramatically reduce the specificity of what radio amateurs are permitted to emit within amateur radio bands. In particular, symbol-rate limitations are of little relevance to coordination and interference. Bandwidth limits are a clearer, more useful approach, but they could be widened across nearly every band with minimal detrimental impact to the amateur radio service. Regulations on what protocols and character encodings have absolutely no place in Part 97. These change too quickly and again, have essentially no bearing on other users' experience. Let the amateur radio community regulate itself, as it has done so successfully for decades. 

Amateur radio has been left far behind commercial radio in the 21st century, in no small part due to outdated regulation preventing experimentation with digital modes. By removing the cruft in Part 97, you could enable a new era of experimentation in amateur radio leading to innovations in emergency communication, rural wireless broadband, and low-power radio networks.