US carriers attack FCC's puritan broadband

[m42]

To the surprise of no one, engineers representing America's incumbent wireless carriers and broadband internet providers have attacked the FCC's plan to grace the country with a free "third pipe."

Earlier this month, the FCC's Office of Engineering and Technology (OET) told chairman Kevin Martin he could move ahead with his plan to provide ad-supported wireless broadband in the so-called AWS-3 band, saying this could be done without interfering with signals in the adjacent AWS-1 band.

But T-Mobile - the Deutsche Telekom-owned outfit now sitting in AWS-1 band - sees things a differently. This week, it led a cavalcade of carriers, ISPs, and handheld manufacturers in telling Martin that the OET is misreading its own tests.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/24/aws_row/

[eric]

The root of the problem is in a *massive* conflict of interest between the FCC's supposed charter and their recent practice of auctioning off of spectrum to the highest bidder.

If they had any vision beyond their lobby-blinders, they would be heavily driving the adoption of Software-Defined Radios and helping ratify a specification for any adhering system to attach to the network and do as it pleases. The FCC is under the sincerely mistaken impression that they own the electromagentic spectrum, where their original charter is actually to facilitate equal-access to said medium which is, by nature, oblivious to the concept of ownership.

Square peg, round hole, etc.

[Anenome]

The root failure is the idea that 'everyone owns the air-waves'. Just as with land, spectrum should be claimed and used and thereby owned. And once owned, sold when the owner likes.