Attention Congress: We Need More Phone Spectrum, And Soon

Written By Lawrence J. Spiwak
Forbes
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2011/05/04/attention-congress-we-need-more-phone-spectrum-and-soon/2/

Americans love their mobile devices. With the rapid adoption of smartphones and tablets, the amount of data transmitted across mobile devices has exploded by 8,000% in four years on some networks, and experts expect demand to continue to increase exponentially over the coming years. However, as we demand more wireless broadband, the amount of spectrum available for these uses is rapidly becoming crowded, to the point where engineers are beginning to speak of “spectrum exhaustion.” So as consumers switch from traditional mobile voice service to 4G broadband services, not only do providers need more spectrum, but this spectrum needs to be made available in large, contiguous blocks in order to maximize spectral efficiencies and to minimize network deployment costs.