Using all the spectrum

Speed Matters has been covering the debate over the FCC plan to auction off portions of the spectrum - currently being held for UHF television broadcasts - to re-use for mobile communications. The goal is twofold: to raise money for the federal government and to enlarge the amount of usable spectrum.

The debate centers on the rules for the proposed auction of the now-underused UHF spectrum. Those rules will determine how much of the newly free spectrum to devote to commercial, mobile use - and how much to make available for public use. Speed Matters and CWA supports both uses, but we find that recent arguments by Mark Cooper, Director of Research at the Consumer Federation of America, clarifies the role of the public spectrum. He wrote in a recent Wall Street Journal blog:

"... unlicensed spectrum is the most valuable part of the wireless broadband product space by a wide margin. It supports half the traffic delivered to consumer smartphones and tablets and is the final link to the consumer for one quarter of all traffic flow delivered to users with fixed, wireline broadband. The massive amount of economic activity in the unlicensed space generates huge economic value, which in turn maximizes large tax revenues for the federal government."

But he also points out that there are costs and commitments associate with unlicensed spectrum:

"... it is important to recognize that not paying money at auction to gain access to unlicensed spectrum does not mean that it is free to put it to use... There are real costs in building and acquiring the equipment that will receive the data transmissions and to manage an unlicensed wireless network."

Divided over spectrum (Speed Matters, Feb. 20, 2013)

Fact-Checking the Spectrum Food Fight (Wall Street Journal, Feb. 21, 2013)