Cell Phone Inventor: Spectrum Reclamation Isn't Answer

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Martin Cooper, credited with inventing the cell phone, is this week's guest on C-SPAN's The Communicators.

He says the Federal Communications Commission should not be focused on trying to get more spectrum from any of the current users, but instead on spurring more efficient use of the spectrum already out there. He said making that spectrum exponentially more efficient is doable. Cooper's company, ArrayComm, is in the business of achieving that spectral efficiency. Talking about his theory of spectral efficiency, Cooper said that given how much more efficient transmissions are since the days of Marconi--by a trillion times, or doubled every month over the past 110 years-- he saw that continuing if there is incentive to keep finding more efficiencies. "We know we can keep doing this for the next 50 or 60 years," he said, and then hand that process off to the next generation. Cooper said that freeing up more spectrum is "a wish and a hope." While he said that the spectrum belonged to the public, he also said it is very difficult to get spectrum from licensees because the way the allocation process has been set up, it is more like ownership.


Cell Phone Inventor: Spectrum Reclamation Isn't Answer