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Washington Beat We Need More Spectrum! by Laura Quarantiello |
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More Spectrum! A Congressional Internet Caucus forum heard from experts recently on the topic of spectrum, a subject that’s on everyone’s hot list these days. Speakers made their cases for having more spectrum, particularly a segment of that held by the broadcast industry, freed for wireless Internet services. The broadcast TV band has 67 channels, only seven of which are used in the average U.S. city, said Thomas Hazlett, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. On the other hand, U.S. wireless companies have access to 159 MHz of spectrum, compared with 250 MHz allotted to European carriers. The U.S. industry has made a lot of things happen with a modest amount of spectrum, Steve Berry, a senior vice president at CTIA, pointed out. Hazlett said that the 100 MHz of spectrum sought by the Federal Communications Commission for wireless services over the next 10 years isn’t “very ambitious.” Greg Waldron, a partner at the communications law firm Covington & Burling, said that Congressional lawmakers have repeatedly passed legislation deeming broadcast spectrum separate and different. Michael Calabrese of the New America Foundation said that the FCC should keep a segment of spectrum open for unlicensed use, as did a former chief of spectrum management at the FCC. CTIA’s Berry agreed with a spectrum allocation model that includes sales and leases of the resource, along with some free common areas. By The Numbers The FCC has released a list of broadcast station totals as of March 31, 2003. According to the Commission, there are a total of 26,366 broadcast stations in the United States. Of those, 4,804 are AM stations, 6,179 are FM Commercial stations, and 2,400 are FM Educational stations. There 757 UHF Commercial TV stations, 583 VHF Commercial TV, 254 UHF Educational TV, and 127 VHF Educational TV stations. Class A UHF and VHF stations number 493 and 107, respectively. The total of FM translators and boosters are 3,818, with 2,632 UHF translators and 2,094 VHF translators. Low-power TV stations on UHF number 1,596, and on VHF, 522. |
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