The nation's wireless carriers have an answer to the nation's broadband challenge and the growing interest by federal regulators in how wireless companies run their networks: Give us more of the airwaves so we can do our job.
In a filing (.pdf) Tuesday to the FCC, the wireless industry asked the agency to free up and auction off more spectrum, citing the growing popularity of smartphones and wireless cards — essentially endorsing the view of even its harshest critics that that there may not be enough waves in the air to meet future demand.
"There is a looming spectrum crisis for U.S. consumers and businesses, which are rapidly embracing and increasingly dependent on this 'wherever, whenever' access," the CTIA's top lobbyist, Chris Guttman-McCabe wrote in the ex-parte filing. "Without swift and bold action by U.S. policymakers to free up a critical national resource — our nation’s airwaves — consumers and businesses in this country will find themselves unable to reap the full benefits of the mobile broadband age."
The wireless industry argues that it needs more spectrum to handle data-chugging smartphone users, data card users and e-book readers hungry to download the latest issue of the New Yorker. The CTIA says the feds need to open up another 800 MHz of spectrum by 2015, which would almost treble the 410 MHz currently allocated.
The CTIA also asked the feds to immediately open up 50 MHz for commercial wireless services immediately.
The proposal may be the only paper the CTIA has released in the past two years that won't draw objections from public interest groups, who largely agree the wireless carriers need more room to feed citizens' hungry mobile devices.
That's about as far as such agreements go — start talking about whether openess rules ought to apply to the spectrum and you'll get Google and Public Knowledge on one side, and AT&T and Verizon on the other.
In the 2007 auction of the 700 MHz spectrum, Verizon spent more than $4.6 billion on spectrum that came with mandated open-access rules. CTIA and Verizon both sued over the rules, though both eventually dropped their challenges. The FCC is now talking about extending those openness rules to all wireless bandwidth, which the carriers say is unfair.
Photo: Flickr/GavinMusic
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