FCC Chairman Warns of Wireless Spectrum Gap

locallyunscene writes "'We are fast entering a world where mass-market mobile devices consume thousands of megabytes each month,' FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski warned at CTIA Wireless yesterday. 'So we must ask: what happens when every mobile user has an iPhone, a Palm Pre, a BlackBerry Tour, or whatever the next device is? What happens when we quadruple the number of subscribers with mobile broadband on their laptops or netbooks?'"

Comments

Re:It's 1996 again?

[commodore64_love]

>>>Once the air is saturated on the allocated frequencies, we are done

Not quite "done". We can say goodbye to over-the-air FM and TV. We already lost channels 52 to 83 that were turned-over to cellphones, and I suspect it's only a matter of time until channels 2 to 51 (including the FM band) disappear. That would not meet the FCC's "30 fold" estimate, but it would increase the available wireless spectrum by about 9 times present levels.

Lower frequency shortwave and AM radio will probably survive, simply because it's not practical to carry-around 100 foot long transmitting antennas with your phone.