November 24th, 2009The shortage, abundance and myth of spectrum
You may hear from time to time this story of the scarcity of wireless spectrum. Wireless data usage is skyrocketing, wireless broadband connections are expected to cross over the number of fixed broadband connections as early as 2010. You might have also noticed that in Canada’s recent spectrum auction, the going rate for a mere 10Mhz of spectrum coast to coast in Canada (out of the several thousands of total arguably “useful” space in the EM spectrum) was being auctioned for upwards of 500 million dollars. Billions in fact taxed out to the industry on “scarce” spectrum before even the first dollar spent on actual useful infrastructure like say towers or terminals.
You might have noticed that short of owning precious spectrum licenses, neither you yourself nor any of your entrepreneurialy minded friends, are not allowed at all to set up any kind of radio tower of your own with a range any greater than a home wifi router. Why is that again?
Ladies and gentlemen, the other side of the story:
Michael Calabresse – The myth of spectrum scarcity:
“the only thing that’s scarce is government permission to use the airwaves”
Link: The Wireless Bandwidth Crunch: Where Will We Find More Spectrum?
Link: Ecom America 2009 Video: The Myth of Spectrum Scarcity (Michael Calabrese)
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roland
