That tweet on secondary markets – specifically, the ability for wireless companies to buy spectrum from those who have it to sell – is especially good news since it clearly builds on FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s recent call-to-arms on the benefits of supporting the mobile economy.
Let’s be clear on the stakes with this issue: The FCC’s authority to regulate our wireless spectrum, which includes approving its current backlog of wireless spectrum transfer requests, is probably the biggest economic and consumer issue the Commission faces today.
Americans’ surging use of wireless data is creating a serious bottleneck. Chairman Genachowski himself said this in blunt terms at CES this year – the third time in as many years that he called it a “spectrum crunch.” And that bottleneck is expected to hit us as early as this next year.
That’s why it’s really great to see Commissioner Rosenworcel’s leadership by highlighting spectrum secondary market transactions as a quick way for the FCC to address the crunch.
So, thank you, Chairman Genachowski and Commissioner Rosenworcel. Let’s get spectrum in the hands of those prepared to invest and deploy the next generation mobile broadband networks that will offer American’s a wave of new services and applications at higher speeds and better quality.