Slashdot Mirror
The Feds Vacate Airwaves
dada21 writes to tell us UPI is reporting that the government is getting ready to spend $936 million to move its radio communication to an obscure segment of the spectrum to make room for next-generation mobile tech. From the article: "'With 90 megahertz of additional spectrum, today's cellular carriers will be tomorrow's next-generation broadband providers,' Michael D. Gallagher, assistant secretary of commerce for communications and information, said in a statement."
More than this, what kind of payoffs did the current telecommunication providers have to give the government to get these plum swaths of spectrum at such a deal. And how about the loss to the government of the infrastructure already in place to use the spectrum being given up. Is this even necessary to get broadband to the consumer? I'm not under the impression it is. I'm under the impression the thing keeping braodband from the consumer is an awareness by the providers that any sort of real competition in the marketplace means profit-margins that can't cover for their losses in other markets. So they have purchased laws to allow them the sole-provider moniker and where there might be competition used collusion to keeps prices high and supply artificially low. How much dark fiber is there?
The wireless carrier lobbyists must have been busy wining and dining Republican officials.