FCC Again Promises More Spectrum Will lure broadcasters with voluntary incentive auctions Friday Jan 07 2011 16:32 EDT At a speech this week at CES, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski again pledged to make the release of additional spectrum a top priority for the agency this year. As previously considered, Genachowski hopes he can lure broadcasters into given up some of their unused spectrum, using spectrum incentive auctions, which would allow broadcasters to voluntarily give up spectrum in exchange for some of the auction proceeds. Genachowski insists such auctions would be a "mechanism to enable market forces to unleash the value of that spectrum for broadband use." Genachowski reiterated the FCC position that there's a "spectrum crisis" afoot, though said crisis is in large part due to already-owned spectrum being used inefficiently. Though the FCC boss failed to mention it, the government has a lot of inefficiently or unused spectrum. Also unmentioned by Genachowski is the fact that wireless carriers are sitting on about $15 billion in unused spectrum, with AT&T alone squatting over around $10 billion worth. Responding to Genachowski's statement that many broadcasters also might not be making the most efficient use of spectrum, a National Association Of Broadcaster statement quickly found its way into our inbox this afternoon: quote: "Broadcasters have no quarrel with an incentive auction that is truly voluntary. It's also noteworthy that broadcasters have already returned 108 MHz of spectrum to the government, a position that makes us the only user of airwaves that has returned spectrum to the government. Simply put, broadcast television is far and away the most efficient user of spectrum because of a 'one-to-many' transmission system that is remarkably reliable in a communications era best known for inconsistent 'one-to-one' cellphone connections."
You might recall there was some fear last year after an erroneous Wall Street Journal report suggested the FCC might try to grab some broadcaster spectrum by force, something the FCC says was never on the table. |
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Take note, cord cuttersIf OTA TV dies, you won't be getting the big four networks for free OTA. | |
| | SabreDi relung hatiku bernyanyi bidadari join:2005-05-17 |
Sabre
Member
2011-Jan-7 4:26 pm
Re: Take note, cord cuttersOf course not, but I haven't quite been able to follow a lot of what's being talked about in these articles. I don't see anything implying that OTA was on the verge of extinction. Have I missed something? | |
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Re: Take note, cord cuttersGenachowski has been beating the drum that they want more broadcast spectrum to be repurposed for broadband. The plan is to push broacasters to VHF, which sucks for Dtv. It's more elaborate than that of course but that's the long and short of it.. | |
| | | | IowaMan Premium Member join:2008-08-21 Grinnell, IA |
IowaMan
Premium Member
2011-Jan-7 6:40 pm
Re: Take note, cord cuttersA few (cheap ran) stations are on VHF. My ABC affiliate for example. » en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WO ··· levision It still sign's off for cry-an out loud! | |
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Re: Take note, cord cuttersIn new York we have major ABC PBS and CW affiliates on VHF. In Philly the abc affiliate is on channel 6. The FCC wants everyone on VHF so they can sell the spectrum to the likes of verizon and AT&T. | |
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Bubba3
Anon
2011-Jan-13 12:05 am
Re: Take note, cord cuttersWCBS-2 is on Channel 33. WNBC-4 is on Channel 28. WNYW-Fox 5 is on Channel 44. WABC-7 is on Channel 7, and 45. WWOR-My 9 is on Channel 38 (Licensed to Secaucus, NY WPIX-CW 11, is on Channel is on 11, and Channel 33 via a STA. WNET-13 (PBS) is on Channel 13, and Channel 61 (!) via a STA. (Licensed to Newark, NJ.)
The Philadelphia situation is kind of unique. They felt they could continue their FM broadcast on 87.75 or even move it to 87.7 or better 87.9, and they did it for some time. The pulled it when their legal advisors decided it was not permitted, but they planned on going back to see if they could do it. Of all the Channel 6 stations in the country, they promoted their "FM dial presence" more than any other. The Richmond Channel 6 never mentioned it. | |
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to fifty nine
WCBS-2 is on Channel 33. WNBC-4 is on Channel 28. WNYW-Fox 5 is on Channel 44. WABC-7 is on Channel 7, and 45. WWOR-My 9 is on Channel 38 (Licensed to Secaucus, NY WPIX-CW 11, is on Channel is on 11, and Channel 33 via a STA. WNET-13 (PBS) is on Channel 13, and Channel 61 (!) via a STA. (Licensed to Newark, NJ.)
The Philadelphia situation is kind of unique. They felt they could continue their FM broadcast on 87.75 or even move it to 87.7 or better 87.9, and they did it for some time. The pulled it when their legal advisors decided it was not permitted, but they planned on going back to see if they could do it. Of all the Channel 6 stations in the country, they promoted their "FM dial presence" more than any other. The Richmond Channel 6 never mentioned it. | |
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to fifty nine
Maybe comcast nbc will pull out but what about the others? | |
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Re: Take note, cord cutterssaid by Joe12345678:Maybe comcast nbc will pull out but what about the others? NBC will not. They have pledged to the FCC to keep NBC free OTA. | |
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keefe007 Premium Member join:2004-02-24 Germantown, WI |
keefe007
Premium Member
2011-Jan-7 4:38 pm
HoardersGenachowski also fails to mention that the biggest hoarder of spectrum is the federal government. They have huge blocks of spectrum and they don't use a lot of it. | |
| | PDXPLT join:2003-12-04 Banks, OR |
PDXPLT
Member
2011-Jan-7 6:07 pm
Re: HoardersActually, he mentions it all the time, when the subject of reallocation arises. There's also not alot he can do about it, as Federal Government use of spectrum is not regulated by the FCC. Under the Communications Act, Federal spectrum use is controlled by the NTIA. And gov't agencies tow a tough line. The FAA's position is always "touch our spectrum, and planes fall out of the sky". The military? Even worse. | |
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Re: Hoarderssaid by PDXPLT: The FAA's position is always "touch our spectrum, and planes fall out of the sky". Time to file criminally negligent manslaughter charges against the FAA then. | |
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In other words....That's a big fu*k you to the WISPs.
" which would allow broadcasters to voluntarily give up spectrum in exchange for some of the auction proceeds."
I.E. The heavy hitters with Billions to spend on frequency hoarding will see to it that no one else gets to make use of it. | |
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Re: In other words....Something like that. Both AT&T and Verizon have massive swaths of 1700MHz spectrum that they're just sitting on, and AFAIK neither company plans to do anything on 1700 until maybe LTE-700 gets capacity problems. Compare this to T-Mobile, who at least has launched metro-area service on their spectrum, though they've got 20MHz of spectrum across tons of areas that will likely never see service by them. Would be cool if they worked with smaller operators like Verizon is doing... | |
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amungus Premium Member join:2004-11-26 America |
amungus
Premium Member
2011-Jan-7 4:56 pm
Lure?Love the use of the term "lure" - as in - some bad person might kill your cat if you don't cave in and just give up broadcasting...
We just went through relinquishing 108Mhz of "TV" spectrum... That is PLENTY to do TONS of things with. If anything, make AT&T resell some of their massive slice. Oh wait, that won't happen because they want as much as possible to be completely controlled by the gov't, which AT&T is already willing to let happen.
Leave OTA alone. It is one of the last "free" things in this "free" country. | |
| | fiberguy2My views are my own. Premium Member join:2005-05-20 |
Re: Lure?OTA isn't going anywhere... | |
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PDXPLT join:2003-12-04 Banks, OR |
PDXPLT
Member
2011-Jan-7 6:01 pm
NAB nonsensequote: Simply put, broadcast television is far and away the most efficient user of spectrum ...
Bull. It's technically possible for any transmission system that is based on single, powerful (up to 1 Megawatt EIRP) transmitter to be spectrally efficient. Gee, in 6 MHz of spectrum, they're only able to provide an aggregate of 19 Mbits, shared all the inhabitants of a 60-70 mile region. As a counter example, in the same region, by the principle of "spatial reuse" (i.e., multiple, low-power transmitters separated by distance), in a single Wi-Fi band, you have tens- or hundreds-of-thousands of users, each able to trasnmit and receive 100's of Mbits of data, for a aggregate of many terabits per second, in the same amount of spectrum as 2 or 3 TV channels. Not to mention the fact that the 6 MHz of spectrum is used to transmit content that the majority of users are already receiving via a hardwired connection into their home (Cable) or via reception of DBS satellite signals. Cellular providers are able to serve many users with a wide variety of content, using a franction of the spectrum allocated to the TV broadcasters. The FCC erred when it adopted the same 1930's-era broadcasting architecture for the digital TV transition. it should have mandated a large number of small, coodinated transmitters be used in the band, which could make the most efficient and fexible use of the spectrum resource. | |
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Re: NAB nonsensesaid by PDXPLT: Cellular providers are able to serve many users with a wide variety of content, using a franction of the spectrum allocated to the TV broadcasters. How much would all of TV spectrum be worth? It's been said it would cost $670 billion to lay fiber to 98% of the US. If the US had that capacity it would be feasible to move OTA to the internet. I wonder how that cost, the profit from redeploying TV spectrum, and the share of that profit going to current licensees might work. | |
| | | zacron Premium Member join:2008-11-26 Frozen Hoth |
zacron
Premium Member
2011-Jan-7 6:37 pm
Re: NAB nonsenseWhy not start by getting rid of AM broadcasts and work your way up?
Seriously, I call FUD. | |
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Re: NAB nonsenseAnything below 30mhz is incredibly susceptible to interference from almost everything. Any kind of electric motor with brushes, car ignition systems, lightning, static discharges, neon lights, solar radiation -- you name it and that spectrum is full of it. FM starts at 87mhz which means there might be 50mhz of somewhat useful spectrum. I agree with the concept but I'd probably leave FM alone and start at 108mhz instead of AM.
BTW, AM only has ~530khz to ~1600khz -- only ~1Mhz of spectrum. Another consideration is that lower frequencies don't need a lot of power to go great distances. They are very omnidirectional and until they get above probably 20mhz, they easily bounce off the ionosphere and travel great distances. There are short wave stations that can be heard for thousands of miles on 50KW of power. There are also clear-channel AM stations that can be heard nationwide on 50KW. My thoughts are such that these lower frequencies aren't very suitable for modern, low-power, closely-spaced cellular approaches. | |
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Re: NAB nonsenseI agree that it would be ridiculous to repurpose the AM radio band to digital communications. There is just too little spectral bandwidth (I'd be surprised if you could get 4 Mb/s total throughput for that 1 MHz slice) to be of use. The range can also be a plus or minus, depending on how you look at it (number of transmitters vs. what's the end user throughput when shared). Another consideration is RF circuit and antenna design if you want to use all 1 MHz at once. From my limited understanding of RF antennas, the reason higher frequencies can be more preferable to use is that the wavelength over the transmission band doesnot vary as much, thus easier to get a good antenna and frontend (i'm not 100% positive on this bit though).
The TV band is a much better band to go after as there is much more spectral bandwidth that is going unused in much of the country. | |
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Re: NAB nonsenseAlso higher frequencies fade/die faster through air over the same distance, making frequency reuse easier. If you crank down the transmit power to make sure it fades enough as to not hit the cell past the next cell, you lost signal/SNR/digital bandwidth. | |
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| | PDXPLT join:2003-12-04 Banks, OR |
to amigo_boy
You wouldn't even need to do that. Some developing countries never bothered with OTA at all, using mostly Free-To-Air satellite to deliver TV channels. Of course most homes in the U.S. are alrready wired to a hybrid fiber/coax network, and receive their TV through it. Using valuable VHF/UHF spectrum to deliver broadcasts to fixed stations is just a wasteful idea. | |
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Re: NAB nonsensesaid by PDXPLT:Using valuable VHF/UHF spectrum to deliver broadcasts to fixed stations is just a wasteful idea. Ok. But, that ship's already sailed. I'm just curious what the economics look like. What would OTA broadcasting's spectrum be worth if vacated and redeployed? | |
| | | | | 88615298 (banned) join:2004-07-28 West Tenness |
88615298 (banned)
Member
2011-Jan-8 2:29 pm
Re: NAB nonsensesaid by amigo_boy:said by PDXPLT:Using valuable VHF/UHF spectrum to deliver broadcasts to fixed stations is just a wasteful idea. Ok. But, that ship's already sailed. I'm just curious what the economics look like. What would OTA broadcasting's spectrum be worth if vacated and redeployed? Not much. Clearing channels 31-51 ( except 37 ) like the FCC wants is worth maybe $25 billion. | |
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| | | fiberguy2My views are my own. Premium Member join:2005-05-20 |
to PDXPLT
said by PDXPLT: Using valuable VHF/UHF spectrum to deliver broadcasts to fixed stations is just a wasteful idea. Only problem with this statement is that it's not an "idea"... rather, it's reality. You see how much time, effort, and money it took to get OTA broadcasters off Digital and into Analog,... I don't see the end of OTA - there are just too many obstacles in the way of that hope. | |
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Re: NAB nonsensesaid by fiberguy2:said by PDXPLT: Using valuable VHF/UHF spectrum to deliver broadcasts to fixed stations is just a wasteful idea. Only problem with this statement is that it's not an "idea"... rather, it's reality. You see how much time, effort, and money it took to get OTA broadcasters off Digital and into Analog,... I don't see the end of OTA - there are just too many obstacles in the way of that hope. I agree... if they were going to totally take away the spectrum, they should have done it 2 years ago rather than spending billions to convert to digital and regardless of how wasteful it might be, it simply wouldn't be fair to yank it away so quickly after putting them through the process they just finished. Consolidating to a narrower band of spectrum will be a much simpler process than the digital switchover was. Yes, there will be costs, but only to the broadcaster side. The consumer devices can simply rescan and receive the channels on their new frequencies. | |
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Re: NAB nonsensesaid by jcremin:Consolidating to a narrower band of spectrum will be a much simpler process than the digital switchover was. Yes, there will be costs, but only to the broadcaster side. The consumer devices can simply rescan and receive the channels on their new frequencies. No. This would be true if the spectrum was available. It is not. When the FCC is talking about reallocating spectrum away from OTA, they're talking about taking away OTA broadcasts. The digital transition already took away 108Mhz and left another 30Mhz undesirable; now they want to take another 200Mhz. In the northeast US, there is literally no UHF and no upper-VHF spectrum available. VHF-Lo channel 6 is used as well. You can't fit 200Mhz of stations into the remaining 24Mhz, even if VHF-Lo (especially 2-4) weren't terrible for digital TV for technical reasons. | |
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Bubba3 to jcremin
Anon
2011-Jan-13 12:27 am
to jcremin
That would be 20 years ago, when the digital plan was started, and 12 years ago, not 2, when the digital stations started being built. | |
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jcremin
Member
2011-Jan-13 12:34 am
Re: NAB nonsensesaid by Bubba3 :That would be 20 years ago, when the digital plan was started, and 12 years ago, not 2, when the digital stations started being built. Not sure I fully understand what you are saying. The DTV switchover was June 12 of 2009, which was only 1 1/2 years ago. I just rounded up to the nearest year. Anyway, that was the date that analog transmitters had to be shut off, and I think that when they had to switchover to digital, that the spectrum should have been consolidated much more than it was, and yes, that should have happened at least a few years earlier to give enough time to plan it out. | |
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Bubba3
Anon
2011-Jan-16 5:57 am
Re: NAB nonsenseIt appears you really DON'T understand. The first digital stations, other than two test platforms in DC, went on the air in 1997. They didn't wait until 2009 to go on the air.
Discussion on the standards to be used began a good ten years before that, and the ATSC -- Advanced Television Systems Committee was formed by the Grand Alliance in or just after 1990.
The Grand Alliance was made up of equipment manufacturers, receiver (TV) manufacturers, communications companies, and broadcasters. It was a long road, and a whole lot of things were considered, including widening the channels to 8 MHz as was originally done in Japan for their ANALOG HD TV system, and the different modulation schemes.
Sorry you don't know or understand the history, and frankly the gritty details are not known outside the industry, but you COULD research it on the web. There is a lot of good information on Wikipedia if you follow the leads.
I saw my first HD picture on a picture tube in about 1983, or maybe a bit later at an NAB show. I saw my first BROADCAST HD picture in about 1988, and it was ME walking down a hall at NBC.
Just because you didn't know it was going on doesn't mean it wasn't happening. | |
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to PDXPLT
said by PDXPLT:You wouldn't even need to do that. Some developing countries never bothered with OTA at all, using mostly Free-To-Air satellite to deliver TV channels. Of course most homes in the U.S. are alrready wired to a hybrid fiber/coax network, and receive their TV through it. Using valuable VHF/UHF spectrum to deliver broadcasts to fixed stations is just a wasteful idea. Name some countries that don't have OTA tv. | |
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to PDXPLT
said by PDXPLT:You wouldn't even need to do that. Some developing countries never bothered with OTA at all, using mostly Free-To-Air satellite to deliver TV channels. Of course most homes in the U.S. are alrready wired to a hybrid fiber/coax network, and receive their TV through it. Using valuable VHF/UHF spectrum to deliver broadcasts to fixed stations is just a wasteful idea. Trust me in a city like say Chicago it would take MUCH less bandwidth to broadcast a show to 2 million households via OTA than say have each of those households access that show over the intenet. To think otherwise is being stupid. | |
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Re: NAB nonsenseMulticast router, 1 stream, 2 million copies. Now if the Tier 1s and IANA got their **** together, multicast would actually work on the public internet. | |
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to amigo_boy
The last time I heard a nationwide FTTH estimate, it was at $300 billion. | |
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to PDXPLT
And even more efficient would be fiber to the home.
But what has happened to the FTTH deployments? Verizon has basically halted FiOS deployment to new areas, and through Frontier is actually abandoning some of the markets it built out.
There is only going to be so much spectrum. Anything that is hardwired to the ground should be serviced by a hardwired connection for broadband. Period.
If Broadband is a national resource and a national priority, it needs to be taken out of the hands of for profit companies that have demonstrated that they are building networks in a way that maximizes profit and not in the interest of the general public. | |
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to PDXPLT
said by PDXPLT:
Not to mention the fact that the 6 MHz of spectrum is used to transmit content that the majority of users are already receiving via a hardwired connection into their home (Cable) or via reception of DBS satellite signals.
Cellular providers are able to serve many users with a wide variety of content, using a franction of the spectrum allocated to the TV broadcasters. The FCC erred when it adopted the same 1930's-era broadcasting architecture for the digital TV transition. it should have mandated a large number of small, coodinated transmitters be used in the band, which could make the most efficient and fexible use of the spectrum resource.
They tried that and it didn't work. All those little nodes add up to way more energy usage than a large transmitter and the receivers are too complex to be cheap. Free TV is an unalienable right. In most places DirecTV and the cable cos get the OTA feeds from an antenna, as do translators and boosters. If everything is on the internet then one person can flip a switch and put us back a hundred years. We need some local media for civil defense reasons if nothing else. A cellular system is hardly robust. TV transmitters usually have their own power plants and diesel tanks. Wireless will never be a substitute for broadband, no matter how much spectrum they eat. You will never be able to watch HDTV on your phone. | |
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to PDXPLT
Who was to pay for all those additional transmitters, fiber optic timing circuits, building permits, maintenance costs, and electricity? The monetary cost to go to DTV was very high for each broadcast station, how many more stations going bankrupt would have been tolerable? I agree that the present ATSC standard stinks. If they had used MPEG-4 instead of MPEG-2, they might have been twice as efficient. If they had only used UHF, the VHF problems would have been eliminated. If they had specified a height of 6ft above ground level instead of 30ft, that would have been closer to real world use. | |
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rody_44 Premium Member join:2004-02-20 Quakertown, PA |
rody_44
Premium Member
2011-Jan-8 7:36 am
You guys are funny Replace over the air with a fiber network. Look at all the crying that went on for a OTA digital box at 40 dollars. Im sure you guys know what it would cost to get the signal from fiber. At that point free is no longer free. | |
| DavePR join:2008-06-04 Canyon Country, CA |
DavePR
Member
2011-Jan-8 8:36 pm
People Are Getting Rid of Cable and Buying AntennasJulius needs to relax. Switch to decaf or something. OTA HD is all a lot of people need. The pictures are pristine; vastly superior to cable, satellite, or (ugh) web stream. I have no doubt Verizon and the Phone Company will eventually get this space, but the FCC is already stinking the place up with (not) net neutrality. They don't need everybody hating them all at once. There's no hurry. | |
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wellWe should get rid of AM and FM radio. Force people to switch to satellite radio. | |
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ilovepayin
Anon
2011-Jan-9 5:02 am
who caresno really a trigabit speed with 25gb cap is still 25GB | |
| DaveDudeNo Fear join:1999-09-01 New Jersey |
why cant there be an ota cable coWhy cant there be an ota cable company, with digital its possible. | |
| | •••••• | ricep5 Premium Member join:2000-08-07 Jacksonville, FL |
ricep5
Premium Member
2011-Jan-9 8:20 pm
Spectrum "Glut"Spectrum reallocation is going the same way of home mortgages.
Lots of them, some not all that good, and eventually, more than the market can take in.
Which leads to an eventual wireless broadband bubble burst as there is way more spectrum than users.
No one argues that wireless broadband usage is going up, but there needs to be a dose of reality in the demand forecast.
Otherwise we will have a boat load of unused spectrum and bankrupt providers and bankers that lent the money to win it in the auction.
It is getting to be madness. | |
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Re: Spectrum "Glut"said by ricep5:Spectrum reallocation is going the same way of home mortgages.
Lots of them, some not all that good, and eventually, more than the market can take in.
Which leads to an eventual wireless broadband bubble burst as there is way more spectrum than users.
No one argues that wireless broadband usage is going up, but there needs to be a dose of reality in the demand forecast.
Otherwise we will have a boat load of unused spectrum and bankrupt providers and bankers that lent the money to win it in the auction.
It is getting to be madness. Not happening. You need down payment and letter of credit to buy the spectrum. Most of the FCCs spectrum is bought by successful incumbents anyway to "bank" away forever. With all the OTA TV to broadband/cellphone auctions, your LUCKY if you got ONE new provider you can buy service from today so far, which will be Cricket or MetroPCS. | |
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