and thought: why is there a spectrum crunch? Seems similar to saying "I counted to 10 and ran out of numbers, therefore I can't have more than 10 of $whatever".
I admit I am not very educated about wave propagation
When reading comments I learned that "Only short-wave radio and microwave wavelengths can move cleanly through the earth's atmosphere."
Now, of course it makes more sense.
Are there any other reasons? Where can I read more about it?
There is no wireless spectrum crunch. Some cellular carriers have been sitting on spectrum for years. They got it just to keep others from having access to it. Some carriers need to upgrade their tower backhaul from a single T-1 (1.5Mbitps) line to an OC-3072 fiber optic connections(159.252Gbitps) .
The USA also just sold almost 100Mhz of spectrum in the 700MHz band to the cellular carriers. They have only started to use it. Verizon LTE is one example. The FCC has also approved the use of fixed location "whitespace" devices to operate in the gaps between OTA channels. That still does not satisfy the cellular companies.
The real reason this is an "issue" is that the wireless cellular carriers want to create a pay video platform by eliminating "free" advertising supported Over The Air (OTA) television. It is called rent seeking. To eliminate the OTA alternative and take away the spectrum OTA uses, the cellular carriers have come up with a phony "spectrum crunch".
reply to JoeSchmoe007 What I was referring to that Wireless spectrum is limited resource. I was interested in physics, not business side of this issue.
Different frequency ranges have different propagation characteristics and are affected by various noise sources differently. This makes some blocks more suitable for certain uses then others.
There are many competing users of spectrum and the radio modulation techniques interfere with one another requiring users be allocated chunks of spectrum.
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