TMCnet Feature

Google policy wonk Rick Whitt today in an ITEXPO (News - Alert) general session emphasized the fact that wireless spectrum is an important asset that’s in limited supply. He went on to add that a whopping 90 to 95 percent of wireless spectrum is sitting idle and that somebody ought to do something about that.

The director/managing counsel for Google (News - Alert) – who, in response to a question, began his answer by saying “If you believe there is a spectrum crunch…” – also suggested that the FCC (News - Alert) should figure out who has what wireless spectrum and, armed with that information, put some policies in place to address the issue.

That’s important, he said, given “increasingly, spectrum is the lifeblood of technology.”

As Julius Knapp, chief of the FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology, reminded the ITEXPO audience in his keynote today, the commission and Obama administration are on working on making available 500MHz of federal and nonfederal spectrum over the next 10 years, and there’s been a lot of discussion and debate recently about incentive auctions (an idea introduced in The National Broadband Plan) to free up some spectrum.

Google is interested in spectrum and other network transport issues such as net neutrality because it wants to ensure that customers continue to be able to access the advertisements, search engines and other online tools it provides, explained Whitt, who previously was involved in public policy at MCI.

Of course a lot of the other big names in communications are keenly interested in what happens with wireless spectrum as well.

AT&T talked about the need for more wireless spectrum as one of the key drivers of its now-failed effort to acquire T-Mobile (News - Alert) for $39 billion. Although some responded that AT&T already was sitting on a good amount of unused spectrum, the company clearly does have an interest in snapping up more of it. Days after news broke of AT&T dropping the T-Mobile acquisition effort, AT&T got the green light to buy from Qualcomm (News - Alert) 700mHz spectrum licenses covering more than 300 million people for approximately $1.9 billion.

Meanwhile, Verizon recently announced an agreement to buy mobile licenses from cableco consortium SpectrumCo and, separately, from Cox Communications. Verizon’s $3.6 billion deal with SpectrumCo gives the telco nationwide AWS spectrum licenses. It is spending an additional $315 million for spectrum from Cox.

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