USA: Obama even de draad kwijt. Ruim baan voor draadloze technologie.

Bron: Bloomberg 28 juni 2010

Auteur: Todd Shields

Obama said to seek doubling airwaves for smartphones

President Barack Obama proposed today almost doubling the airwaves available for smartphones, laptop connections to the Internet and new wireless devices. Obama signed a memorandum that commits the U.S. to free up 500 megahertz of government and commercial spectrum in the next 10 years to meet demands for mobile access to broadband services. Bloomberg's Gigi Stone reports. (Source: Bloomberg)

President Barack Obama proposed today almost doubling the airwaves available for smartphones, laptop connections to the Internet and new wireless devices.

Obama signed a memorandum that commits the U.S. to free up 500 megahertz of government and commercial spectrum in the next 10 years, to meet demands for mobile access to broadband services.

The proposals may face resistance from television station owners such as CBS Corp. and News Corp.’s Fox Broadcasting that gave up airwaves as part of their switch to digital signals last year, and have sought to keep their remaining allocation. Wireless carriers led by AT&T Inc. are seeking more spectrum.

Obama’s proposals embraced the National Broadband Plan offered in March by the Federal Communications Commission, led by Obama appointee Julius Genachowski. It called for providing more spectrum for services such as mobile phones. The capacity of U.S. wireless networks has been strained by the proliferation of devices such as Apple Inc.’s iPhone.

“America’s future competitiveness and global technology leadership depend, in part, upon the availability of additional spectrum,” Obama said in the memorandum. “The world is going wireless, and we must not fall behind.”

The president’s plan, which requires legislation, would draw on airwaves the administration considers underutilized. Revenue from auctioning the freed-up spectrum would help build a mobile broadband system for public-safety agencies as well as for deficit reduction, according to a White House statement.

‘Catalyze Investment’

“This initiative will catalyze private-sector investment,” Lawrence Summers, Obama’s National Economic Council director, said today in a Washington speech. The proposal will add to economic growth, raise government revenue and “help to create hundreds of thousands of jobs,” he said.

The administration has no estimate of revenue from an auction, Summers said. Experts project revenue “could well reach into the tens of billions of dollars,” he said.

The FCC’s broadband plan calls for deploying “the fastest and most extensive wireless networks” of any nation by 2020, to ensure wider service and spur competition with cable and telephone companies. The plan seeks $12 billion to $16 billion to build and operate the network for emergency workers, with some costs covered by revenue from airwave auctions.

“While more spectrum should be good for wireless carriers, it’s possible the FCC might try to direct some of the new spectrum into the hands of carriers other than AT&T and Verizon,” Paul Gallant, a Washington-based analyst with Concept Capital’s Washington Research Group, said today in an e-mail. He said Sprint Nextel Corp., Deutsche-Telekom AG’s T-Mobile, MetroPCS Communications Inc. and Leap Wireless International Inc. may benefit from such an FCC decision.

Network Builders

The clearest winners are wireless infrastructure companies such as American Tower Corp., Crown Castle International Corp. and Alcatel Lucent, Gallant said.

The agency wants to persuade TV stations to give up some of their airwaves for wireless Web use, in return for payment from an auction that Congress would be asked to authorize. If such sales fail to free enough airwaves, the FCC should consider having broadcasters “on a voluntary or involuntary basis” change how their transmission towers work, or require channel sharing, the agency said.

Broadcasters have said they need their current swath of airwaves to offer viewers multiple, simultaneous programs, and to expand into services such as mobile TV.

‘Jeopardizing’ TV Stations

Congress should authorize a search for unused spectrum, Dennis Wharton, spokesman for the Washington-based National Association of Broadcasters, said today in an e-mailed statement. Policy makers can bolster mobile Web service “without jeopardizing the future of free and local TV service to tens of millions of viewers,” Wharton said.

In April, Gordon Smith, president of the association representing stations and the four broadcast networks --CBS, Fox, Walt Disney Co.’s ABC and General Electric Co.’s NBC Universal -- called the plan “the great spectrum grab” and said it was an “unnecessary government intervention.”

Obama’s proposal is a “win for all Americans as it will drive innovation” and will lead to billions of dollars in investment for spectrum and networks, Steve Largent, president of CTIA-The Wireless Association, a Washington-based trade group, said today in a statement.

Since releasing its broadband plan in March the FCC has declared the wireless industry isn’t sufficiently competitive, and it has restricted the rights to bid on some spectrum by the largest U.S. mobile companies AT&T and Verizon Wireless, which is owned by Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group PLC.

“The administration’s strong actions on wireless broadband will move us significantly towards sustainable economic success, robust investment, and global leadership in innovation,” Genachowski said today in an e-mailed statement.

To contact the reporter on this story: Todd Shields in Washington at tshields3@bloomberg.net

Voor het originele artikel zie:

www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-28/obama-said-to-seek-doubling-of-u-s-spectrum-for-smartphones-internet.html .

A letter to the editor

Maybe somebody should let him know that it will cause disability of hundreds of thousands, loss of work productivity, ill health for Americans. Somewhere he just signed an executive order for a new whatever it was to find ways to better health. Having more wireless isn't the way to go. If they can spend a billion on fiberoptic to go to other countries, they could do it for the US infrastructure as well.



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