Joanna Glasner: Dollar Signs on the Airwaves
December 24, 2004 (Press Release) --
Joanna Glasner: Dollar Signs on the Airwaves
Nearly 50 mobile phone service providers registered to bid in an auction of spectrum licenses next month that will kick off what industry watchers expect to be a brisk year for sales of rights to use public airwaves.
The auction involves the resale of licenses the U.S. government sold in 1996 to wireless startup NextWave Communications, which later filed for bankruptcy. It comes as federal telecommunications regulators prepare to revamp procedures for doling out spectrum to private companies.
As President Bush lays out his agenda for the next four years, industry experts say it's likely that significantly more slices of spectrum will come to market in the next few years.
"Auctions will definitely be more important in the second term," predicts Peter Crampton, a professor of economics at University of Maryland who studies spectrum auctions. "Carriers need more spectrum to offer all the services that customers want."
Ever since the Federal Communications Commission began selling licenses to portions of the public airwaves in 1994, spectrum auctions have been a lucrative enterprise for the federal treasury, raising billions of dollars. However, auction activity dried up in the wake of the telecommunications industry downturn that began in 2001, Crampton said, and has only recently become poised to pick up again.
In a memo published last month, Bush lamented that "existing legal and policy framework for spectrum management has not kept pace with the dramatic changes in technology and spectrum use." The memo directs the Department of Commerce to work with other federal agencies to hash out a plan in the next year that will promote more efficient and effective use of airwaves without compromising national security.
click here for more ....
{http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,65948,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1}
Nearly 50 mobile phone service providers registered to bid in an auction of spectrum licenses next month that will kick off what industry watchers expect to be a brisk year for sales of rights to use public airwaves.
The auction involves the resale of licenses the U.S. government sold in 1996 to wireless startup NextWave Communications, which later filed for bankruptcy. It comes as federal telecommunications regulators prepare to revamp procedures for doling out spectrum to private companies.
As President Bush lays out his agenda for the next four years, industry experts say it's likely that significantly more slices of spectrum will come to market in the next few years.
"Auctions will definitely be more important in the second term," predicts Peter Crampton, a professor of economics at University of Maryland who studies spectrum auctions. "Carriers need more spectrum to offer all the services that customers want."
Ever since the Federal Communications Commission began selling licenses to portions of the public airwaves in 1994, spectrum auctions have been a lucrative enterprise for the federal treasury, raising billions of dollars. However, auction activity dried up in the wake of the telecommunications industry downturn that began in 2001, Crampton said, and has only recently become poised to pick up again.
In a memo published last month, Bush lamented that "existing legal and policy framework for spectrum management has not kept pace with the dramatic changes in technology and spectrum use." The memo directs the Department of Commerce to work with other federal agencies to hash out a plan in the next year that will promote more efficient and effective use of airwaves without compromising national security.
click here for more ....
{http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,65948,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1}
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