RE: Wireless spectrum bidding wars on the horizon

gervasi — Tue, 31 Dec 2013 15:55:29 GMT

I thought the old UHF TV channels were going to be used for something like Wi-Fi, which non-technical media dubbed "Wi-Fi on steroids", presumably because of the lower path loss associated with lower frequencies.

I keep reading about a coming mobile data crisis. Users today switch to a coffee shop's Wi-Fi when the 3G network is congested. In other words they establish a short-range link to a wired backbone. This will have to be automated.

What's funny about I can recall mobile providers saying they were out of spectrum literally in 1986. I read about it in Popular Communications. They've mostly just gone to smaller and smaller cells. Eventually, though, that strategy runs out when someone in a car or train spends all his time handing off from one picocell to the next. This is an interesting problem. Thanks for the article.

RE: Wireless spectrum bidding wars on the horizon

DAB — Mon, 30 Dec 2013 20:35:27 GMT

I think delaying the auction is a good approach.

Face it, they will use whatever they can get and as soon as they get new bands, they will want more.

By delaying availability, it forces the technology companies to think about removing all of the inefficiencies in their systems and come up with more efficient encoding methods to improve information transfer.

So keeping the bandwidth restricted should be a great way to encourage more creativity.

DAB