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A wireless US set for battle of airwaves
Source: Agencies |
December 30, 2009, Wednesday
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WIRELESS devices like Apple's iPhone are transforming the way Americans go online, making it possible to look up driving directions, find the nearest coffee shop and update Facebook on the go.
All of this has a price - in airwaves.
As mobile phones become more sophisticated, they transmit and receive more data over the airwaves.
But the spectrum of wireless frequencies is finite and devices like the iPhone are allowed to use only so much.
Radio and TV outlets, Wi-Fi networks and other communications services also use the airwaves. Each transmits on certain frequencies to avoid interference with others.
Wireless phone companies fear they are in danger of running out of room, leaving congested networks that frustrate users and slow innovation.
So the wireless firms want the government to give them bigger slices of airwaves, even if other users have to give up rights to theirs.
"Spectrum is the equivalent of our highways," says Christopher Guttman-McCabe, vice president of regulatory affairs for The Wireless Association, also known as CTIA, an industry trade group.
"That's how we move our traffic. And the volume of that traffic is increasing so dramatically that we need more lanes. We need more highways."
A fight is now looming.
Wireless companies are eyeing some frequencies used by TV broadcasters, satellite-communications firms and federal agencies such as the Pentagon. Already, some of them are pushing back.
That means tough choices are ahead.
But one way or another, Washington will keep up with the exploding growth of the wireless market, insists United States Representative Rick Boucher, a Democrat.
He is sponsoring a bill that would mandate a government inventory of the airwaves to identify unused or under-used bands that could be reallocated.
"It's not a question of whether we can find more spectrum," said Boucher, chairman of the House of Representatives Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet. "We have to find more spectrum."
CTIA is asking the government to make an additional 800 megahertz of the airwaves available for wireless companies to license over the next six years.
That would be a huge expansion from the industry's slice of roughly 500 megahertz.
The Federal Communications Commission is preparing to make more frequencies available for commercial use, but has just 50 megahertz in the pipeline.
ABI Research projects US mobile broadband subscriptions will climb to a whopping 150 million by 2014, up from 48 million this year and 5 million in 2007.
All of this has a price - in airwaves.
As mobile phones become more sophisticated, they transmit and receive more data over the airwaves.
But the spectrum of wireless frequencies is finite and devices like the iPhone are allowed to use only so much.
Radio and TV outlets, Wi-Fi networks and other communications services also use the airwaves. Each transmits on certain frequencies to avoid interference with others.
Wireless phone companies fear they are in danger of running out of room, leaving congested networks that frustrate users and slow innovation.
So the wireless firms want the government to give them bigger slices of airwaves, even if other users have to give up rights to theirs.
"Spectrum is the equivalent of our highways," says Christopher Guttman-McCabe, vice president of regulatory affairs for The Wireless Association, also known as CTIA, an industry trade group.
"That's how we move our traffic. And the volume of that traffic is increasing so dramatically that we need more lanes. We need more highways."
A fight is now looming.
Wireless companies are eyeing some frequencies used by TV broadcasters, satellite-communications firms and federal agencies such as the Pentagon. Already, some of them are pushing back.
That means tough choices are ahead.
But one way or another, Washington will keep up with the exploding growth of the wireless market, insists United States Representative Rick Boucher, a Democrat.
He is sponsoring a bill that would mandate a government inventory of the airwaves to identify unused or under-used bands that could be reallocated.
"It's not a question of whether we can find more spectrum," said Boucher, chairman of the House of Representatives Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet. "We have to find more spectrum."
CTIA is asking the government to make an additional 800 megahertz of the airwaves available for wireless companies to license over the next six years.
That would be a huge expansion from the industry's slice of roughly 500 megahertz.
The Federal Communications Commission is preparing to make more frequencies available for commercial use, but has just 50 megahertz in the pipeline.
ABI Research projects US mobile broadband subscriptions will climb to a whopping 150 million by 2014, up from 48 million this year and 5 million in 2007.
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