Crowded US Airwaves Desperately In Search of Spectrum Breathing Room

alphadogg writes "Ahead of a major new spectrum auction scheduled for next year, America's four major wireless carriers are jockeying for position in the frequencies available to them, buying, selling and trading licenses to important parts of the nation's airwaves. Surging demand for mobile bandwidth, fueled by an increasingly saturated smartphone market and data-hungry apps, has showed no signs of slowing down. This, understandably, has the wireless industry scrambling to improve its infrastructure in a number of areas, including the amounts of raw spectrum available to the carriers. These shifts, however, are essentially just lateral moves – nothing to directly solve the problems posed by a crowded spectrum. What's really going to save the wireless world, some experts think, is a more comprehensive re-imagining of the way spectrum is used."

Part of the answer...

[jonwil]

Introduce a "use it or loose it" rule for spectrum allocations. Stop carriers from buying spectrum to sit on it or sell it around and around with no-one actually using it.

Re:Ham radio bands

[Ozoner]

This is a spiteful and meaningless troll.

The record shows that Hams have repeatedly provided emergency communications when it's really needed.
Thousands of Hams regularly volunteer their equipment and time in preparedness exercises.

Re:Ham radio bands

[Ozoner]

Again, you demonstrate that you haven't a clue.

Read the stories behind any big disaster, the New Orleans floods, the Indian ocean and Japan Tsunami.

The mobile phone service is the first to go, mainly because of cheap construction and lack of generator backup.

The crucial issue for emergency communications, is having people available who have suitable equipment and who actually know how to set it up and use it.

To be efficient with HF radio gear you need to use it daily. Learning what frequencies, what procedures, how to build and tune a makeshift antenna, how to arrange power-supplies, generators, etc.