Spectrum Challenges Facing The U.S. Wireless Industry
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-06-26/spectrum-challenges-facing-us-wireless-industry
More Americans are using smartphones, tablets and other wireless devices to communicate and transmit data. This has fed the need to store music, photos and videos on virtual computer servers known as the cloud. But this rise in traffic and connectivity has put enormous strain on spectrum, or radio waves that carry phone calls and data. The Federal Communications Commission has warned of a looming crisis and says spectrum will exceed supply by 2013. Diane and a panel of guests discuss the spectrum crunch.
Guests
Blair Levin
communications and society fellow, Aspen Institute.
Christopher McCabe
vice president, regulatory affairs, CTIA - The Wireless Association.
Jonathan Spalter
chairman, Mobile Future.
Related Content
For a closer look on the staggering consumer demand on spectrum, watch Mobile Future's newest video, "Spectrum: Fueling the Mobile Future." Video courtesy Mobile Future
Comments
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I get all of my "TV" and half of my "radio" through the Internet, over WiFi. It's obvious to me that we are eventually going to re-allocate the entire broadcast spectrum to the Internet. Why not do it sooner rather than later?
To answer the Telcoms' greed for spectrum, get out of the congested urban networks.
There is a vast area of the US without 4G, 3G or any cell service. I'm not talking about North Dakota.
My ATT phone doesn't work at all in surprisingly large areas New York state and New England.
Yes, there is competition for cell spectrum in NYC, but a lack of investment elsewhere.
Can anyone tel me why wireless is so much faster & less expensive on other
continents? A family plan with 2 "not so" smart phones pays around $200/month
in the Houston area.
T hankyou
Can anyone tel me why wireless is so much faster & less expensive on other
continents? A family plan with 2 "not so" smart phones pays around $200/month
in the Houston area.
Thank you
Really appreciate your show!
What I hear is a one-time sale of licensed spectrum to benefit the wireless carriers, whose business model requires consumers to pay to play. It seems that the real market force here would be to price wireless use in such a way that heavy users pay a higher rate per unit of data than the lesser users. After all, the fact that Facebook is a billion dollar company would indicate that there is a lot of low value use. Pricing data use would force the consumers of wireless to prioritize use through a cost analysis. This is the through operation of market forces, as opposed to politically driven allocation of assets.
BTW I do not own any stock in broadcasters.
The internet was invented and developed through the use of taxpayer resources, and We The People own these resources. It is only fair that corporations should be required to lease them or share profits with The People for their use of them, and our rights regarding fair use, privacy and reasonable utility costs should be protected formally through regulation. Corporations and those members of our elected representatives that are beholden to them always try to avoid this conversation and make up excuses for why this "won't work". I think it is time to start addressing this as the communications companies continually work toward limiting our access, our privacy, selling our information and increasing our costs.
The "spectrum crunch" is a fiction created by the wireless telephony companies to obtain control over more spectrum and keep competition down. Part of the reason we have such high prices for wireless phones is because we don't have open competition. Also, mobile broadband is "toy broadband" and it is not an adequate substitute for fixed wireless or wireline broadband.
Today's episode was painful to listen to. Diane sounded confused and some of her guests were also confused over the details of cloud computing. Please note that data is not actually stored in a cloud or "in the air" but rather on a server!
I'm just starting to listen to today's episode, but I'm curious about this: I wonder if there is a problem with access for other companies to the wireless spectrum. Is it the case that AT&T and Verizon asking for more access to more of the spectrum when we should be providing that access to other smaller companies. Maybe that would help bring down the seemingly enormous bill I (and I'm sure many other people) pay every month!
Looking forward to the rest of the show....
The Public Airwaves are just that - a public resource. And yes, a finite one at that. As a public resource, commercial entities should be obligated to provide licensing fees commensurate with their profit statements. License fees should be tied to revenues generated through the use of OUR airwaves.
I would not expect this to be a popular viewpoint, in light of today's political anvironment, however after all, what's right is right. I'm personally tired of supporting corporate welfare. When will someone GIVE me the raw materials my business requires to operate, at taxpayers' costs? I wonder what the percentage of operating/constructing a wireless system is allocated to licensing and permit fees? Would that be around 25%, like in many other business models? Maybe it should be.
The licenses structure for for-profit RF systems needs to be reviewed and a solution found. I don't have one, I would hope it would be simple, not piles of more regulation.
Joel Kelsey, policy adviser of advocacy group Free Press recently said that "Verizon is badly overstating its need for the cable companies’ spectrum." The FCC "warns of a spectrum capacity crunch". Who measures this? How is it measured?
Joel Kelsey, policy adviser of advocacy group Free Press recently said that "Verizon is badly overstating its need for the cable companies’ spectrum." The FCC "warns of a spectrum capacity crunch". Who measures this? How is it measured?
Joel Kelsey, policy adviser of advocacy group Free Press recently said that "Verizon is badly overstating its need for the cable companies’ spectrum." The FCC "warns of a spectrum capacity crunch". Who measures this? How is it measured?
Much information was purposely left out by the speaker. Mobile broadband is the least efficient but most profitable means of distributing data in any form. The FCC is being used by the large corporations to provide monopolies for select companies. It is no different then when the US and state and local governments chose after WW II to fund highways instead of fast trains and light rail. Rail is more efficient but having households having to buy and maintain automobiles is much more profitable.
LTE lets Verizon lock in its customers and makes it impossible to buy a multi-band phone and pre-paid SIM to access the network. Currently less than 5% of the USA has 4G of any kind. AT&T and Verizon have stopped adding DSL and put the funds into more 4G towers instead. There are entire states with no 4G coverage.
Where I live 50 miles from Silicon Valley my house in 1990 had only 128K ISDN as a internet connection option. In 2012 that is still true. I pay $80 a month for 10GB of 3G data service from Verizon Wireless with speeds of less than 150K. To get even that I had to spend $750 on a mast, grid antenna, and RF boosting amplifier, and cables, to get a connection to the tower which is less than 4 miles away. I can only access a VerizonWireless tower, so they have the wireless monopoly while AT&T exploits its land line monopoly for my county.
Allowing each company to develop proprietary 4G is no different then when AT&T ruled the phone business in the USA and you had to buy your telephone and your modem from them. It took the courts to break up this monopoly and now 28 years later it is deja vu all over again with the American consumer once again getting the dirty end of the stick.