Originally published: August 1, 2011
Last updated: August 1, 2011 - 7:10pm
[Commentary] House Republicans are pushing a proposal to sell off some of the nation's most valuable real estate as part of a debt-ceiling deal, apparently unaware of the harm it will do our economy.
The GOP-backed plan would gut the huge market potential of this high-octane spectrum by selling it to the highest bidders: incumbent carriers more interested in shutting-out competition than in igniting the next great high-tech boom. Once auctioned, the spectrum would be licensed, creating enormous barriers-to-entry and disincentives for innovators, entrepreneurs and investors. Oddly, House members pushing this auction plan - inappropriately called the "Spectrum Innovation Act" - acknowledge unlicensed spectrum's market advantage. But their mechanism for providing unlicensed spectrum is bizarre. The bill would allow companies - and presumably the public - to place bids for this spectrum either as licensed or unlicensed. This never-before-tried auction would then pit the highest bid for licensed spectrum against the sum of all bids for unlicensed use. If the latter exceeds the former, the U.S. Treasury would reap the proceeds and the nation's economy would reap the rewards of the next unlicensed Wi-Fi boom. But common sense should red-flag this auction scheme as unworkable.
Comments
This is aimed at crushing the
This is aimed at crushing the competition and allowing the big 5 telcos to provide even crappier customer service to the nation. If there are still small ISP's providing great customer service then people will continue to flock to those places and badmouth the big boys the whole way. What this plan does is take away the spectrum being used by the little guys and basically turn off their services overnight.
This is a wolf in sheeps clothing. Do you think the large cell phone companies are going to take a loss to purchase spectrum, no they are going to pass that fee off to their end users.
The cell phone companies already own more than their fair share of spectrum and should be forced to share the asset equity spectrum that sprint is just sitting on. Why not use the bandwidth they already have but are not using?
No they want to put small business out of business and give the end user no choice but garbage capped services.
Call these agencies
CTIA
NTIA
FCC
Congress, and Senators
One thing that the public and
One thing that the public and our legislators fail to realize is that the powerful telco lobby is working to move USF subsidies to mobile wireless. Therefore, they would essentially be funding the spectrum purchases they make with taxpayer money. This dual lobbying strategy is genius. How better to smash the competition than to eliminate competition from expensive auctions AND the funding mechanism which creates the windfall to purchase and raise the bidding price of our nation's spectrum assets. We as a nation cannot continue to sit back and allow this deception to continue. I've said this before and I will say it again, The Good Ole USA is quickly becoming the Good Ole USAT&T or US of Verizon. Eliminating unlicensed spectrum will create a dominant force that will not be easily undone. How soon until the telco charges you to connect to your wireless AP in your house? Without competition, how soon until mobile cell phone bills can be increased at will? Unlicensed spectrum is currently the most efficient spectrum blocks that exist today. These blocks create billions in revenue to manufacturers, distributors, wireless ISPs, hotspots and many other industries. I'm sure if the Congressional Budget Office did extensive research on the financial windfall in tax revenues generated from unlicensed spectrum, not to mention the intangible benefits such as mobility and convenience, the small one time revenue capture from auctions would pale to compare.
Respectfully,
Rick Harnish
Executive Director
WISPA