Spectrum

On Tuesday, the FCC voted 5-0 to approve unlicensed white space usage.  FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has voiced his support throughout the process, along side major companies like Google, Microsoft, and Intel and their campaign toFree The Airwaves.  The National Association of Broadcasters weren't too happy though, as they fear it could interfere with wireless audio equipment.  No word yet on when the world will support our efforts to Free The Future.

The upcoming spectrum auction, opening June 29, 2006, for AWS (Advanced Wireless Services) will no doubt be a major story this summer, but the usual suspects might not be the ones collecting the purse. The FCC auction involves paired spectrum in the 1710-1755 MHz/2110-2155 MHz bands, previously owned by the Department of Defense, which has been long envisioned for 3G services. However, recent Network Neutrality debates have caused several Internet giants to consider taking delivery service into their own hands. Wireless carriers may not be all that interested anyway, as they wait for the FCC to open bidding on the 700 MHz spectrum expected to come in 2008. The 700-MHz spectrum draws more interest because of its propagation characteristics, as it can reach farther and penetrate walls better than can higher frequencies such as AWS. The frequencies were formerly used for UHF TV stations but there has been much debate about the difficulty of clearing out current users. The FCC opening of the AWS spectrum also creates incompatibility with the 2100 MHz spectrum the rest of the world uses for 3G, similar to U.S. allocating PCS on the 1900 MHz spectrum rather than 1800 MHz. Want some telling sound (er... txt) bytes from each of the wireless carriers? VZW: "Ideally, we would participate in the 700-MHz auction," said President and CEO Denny Strigl. Verizon plans to be active in both auctions but believes it has adequate spectrum for its plans for the rest of this decade, he said. Sprint: Sprint has an even less urgent need for additional spectrum than other mobile operators because it has licenses in the 2.5-GHz band that cover much of the country, said Stephen Falk, vice president of global standards at Sprint Nextel. Cingular: Cingular Wireless is comfortable with the amount of spectrum it has today but is evaluating the upcoming auctions, CTO Kris Rinne said. The interesting one of the bunch however is T-Mobile... as they may be the most active AWS bidder. They want the spectrum for UMTS services, says Tole Hart, research director at Gartner Group. "The adjustments needed by European UMTS equipment suppliers to make their wares available quickly in the United States wouldn't be very great." The first FCC spectrum auction, held in June of 1994, netted $617 million in sales for a total of 10 licenses. This time the FCC will put up 1122 AWS licenses in 90 total MHz of spectrum space. A study by the Yankee Group estimates sales for this summer's auction will be between $8 and $13 billion. Aggressive bidding in past PCS auctions netted in upwards of $56 billion. Which leaves us wondering where Sotheby's plays into all of this.