Spectrum of Greed

The Wireless Value Proposition

Ahhh, the smell of Napalm in the morning…. It smells like…..Victory!  But whose victory are we smelling?  And that scent in the air - it’s not Napalm - it’s…. MONEY!

Finally the rest of congress, not just those few that have been milking the FCC cow for all the spectrum licensing fees it could produce, have discovered what a very valuable resource wireless spectrum is.  Now they have decided to do what anyone would want to do if they discovered a valuable resource was theirs, but weren’t sure exactly how to value it - they want to inventory it, according to ARS Technica.

The new government update to an existing Telecom act would provide for a geographic mapping of spectrum that is to be updated in real time and repeated at least every 2 years.   While it falls short in several aspects of what could be accomplished, some see potential for more in Senator Snowe’s comment introducing the bill as “the first step to addressing comprehensive spectrum reform.”

Cory Doctorow over at Boingboing could be my twin on this issue - he writes,

Three tiny slices of open spectrum, at 900Mhz, 2.5Ghz and 5.7Ghz, have created a massive economic and technological revolution through WiFi and other unlicensed uses of the public airwaves. The potential for new economic and technological gains from more open spectrum is unimaginable. Getting that spectrum into use is damned good policy, and long overdue.

He also makes the excellent point that the traditionally short sighted FCC will gladly trade cash in hand now for flexibility and a huge economic growth opportunity down the road.

The actual verbiage of the proposed bill can be read here.

While mapping of used spectrum on a geographic basis will provide information that is useful and help to quantify information that the FCC and the NTIA should have had all along, it won’t provide any incentive to make more strategic decisions with the precious resources being mapped.  No funding is provided for any gathering of new information - if the info is already available it has to be collected, but if it doesn’t exist, no foul.

The bill will provide another level of transparency that has been lacking, along with an online tool that will  greatly improve the distribution of this information to interested parties.  This is a step in the right direction.  My thanks to John Kerry (D-MA), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Bill Nelson (D-FL), and Roger Wicker (R-MS) for introducing this legislation.  While it isn’t enough, it is WAY more than we have received in the past.  Let’s keep’em coming!