With all the celebratory buzz at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, leave it to the government to be a buzz kill.
As wireless carriers and manufacturers reveled in their lineup of data-hungry phones, hotspots and tablets, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Julius Genachowski, sounded a stark warning bell about a problem with no quick solutions.
Crunch Time
“We need to address the looming spectrum crunch, and we need to ensure the availability of unlicensed spectrum as a platform for American innovation,” he said.
Unless Congress acts soon to enable broadcasters to auction their licensed spectrum to wireless carriers, the carriers won’t be able to meet demand.
“The incentive auction needs to become law now,” Genachowski said. “We’re going to get swamped by an ocean of demand.”
Expanding spectrum is a priority for carriers, and was a key component of AT&T’s failed bid to acquire T-Mobile. The added customer base, which concerned regulators about a monopoly, was small potatoes compared with the acquired spectrum the No. 2 carrier would have gained to support its fast-growing network. In December 2010, the carrier agreed to pay $ 1.925 billion to chip-maker Qualcomm to buy spectrum licenses in the lower 700-megahertz band.
Its top rival, Verizon Wireless, recently plunked down $ 3.6 billion to buy spectrum from Time Warner Cable, Comcast and Bright House Networks, and made a separate deal to buy 20 megahertz of Advanced Wireless Services spectrum licenses from Cox Communications.
Genachowski’s remarks were similar to those he made at the previous two CES shows since he has been in office. He called the looming crunch “”the dark cloud around the silver lining” that could kill jobs and stifle innovation.
But he said it was important to focus on the right solution.
“Getting it right is as important as getting it done,” he said, according to an FCC transcript…
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