Spectrum Crisis is ‘Science Fiction,’ NAB’s Study Concludes

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TVB | Spectrum Crisis is

"WASHINGTON: The looming spectrum crisis is manufactured, according to a former Federal Communications Commission official. In a study commissioned by the National Association of Broadcasters, Uzoma Onyeije says the “spectrum crisis is factually revisionist.”
He also points out that voice calls could be more efficiently handled as packet-based Internet Protocol rather than circuit-switched traffic. Offloading mobile Internet traffic to Wi-Fi fixed locations is also expected to rise, and therefore increase capacity. Onyeije quotes American Tower Corp. chief James Taiclet as saying the company’s 38,000 tower sites are at about 50 percent capacity.

“AT&T and other wireless operators could double the amount of capacity they supply with current spectrum by investing more in new wireless equipment on existing cell towers,” Taiclet is quoted as saying.



Onyeije, former broadband legal advisor at the FCC Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, debunked the existence of the spectrum crisis now being used to justify the reallocation of 40 percent of the broadcast spectrum for broadband.

Susan Polyakova of the Wireless Communications Association International replies: “The latest spectrum paper by Onyeije Consulting submitted by broadcasters to the FCC proposes alternatives to incentive auctions but doesn’t provide any technical or economic analysis demonstrating that these alternatives would actually work. The paper also ignores the fact that the best alternative to solve the spectrum crisis is to make more spectrum available, and broadcasters are sitting on an enormous amount of the best spectrum for mobile broadband.”

Here is some economic analysis. OTA TV saves me $60+ a month over pay-tv and pay-tv averages 4% increases per year, which means that even at 1% interest I'll have well over $20,000 more in my retirement in 20 years by NOT paying for it. That means that I'll be less of a burden on society when I'm old. Meanwhile the refusal of the cell phone industry to build more towers costs local workers jobs, landowners lease money, etc. Then add to that the loss of local jobs provided by local small businesses such as local broadcasters and local WISPs, and the fact that AT&T and Verizon are two of the fastest growing pay-TV companies, and this plan is shown to be what it really is, a wealth redistribution plan from the local working class to the pockets of the owners of Sprint, AT&T, and Verizon.