The FCC's Misguided Spectrum Quest

[Commentary] The Federal Communications Commission talks a good game about letting broadcast spectrum find its "highest and best" use, but predictably degenerates into simply trying to pry spectrum away from its previous favorite technology (broadcast) and give it to its new favorite (mobile broadband). This is a mistake for several reasons.

More spectrum is always better, but new pricing models and techniques for managing traffic will surely help to deal with the mobile broadband megatrend. Meanwhile, the FCC needs to see a bigger picture. The fixed and mobile networks are one, and both are in danger of being swamped by video (90% of all Internet traffic by 2013, predicts Cisco). Both would benefit hugely from a policy that really does let spectrum flow to its most valued uses, whether broadcast or broadband. And that's exactly what would happen, willy nilly, if Washington were to roll back its antiquated ownership restrictions on America's other, unrecognized wireless industry -- its over-the-air broadcasters. This is especially important now because TV is about to be overhauled dramatically as "over the top" services challenge cable and satellite. Broadcast has real advantages in the digital age. It can deliver bits without ripping up the streets or hanging wires all over town, without placing satellites in orbit. And unlike mobile or fixed broadband, it can deliver the same bits to many viewers without sending congestion-creating individual streams to each.

Bottom line: In the future, a revamped and transformed broadcast sector will lift a large amount of video load off the fixed and mobile networks -- if we let it. The FCC claims it doesn't pick winning and losing technologies. But its musty regulatory hang-ups do exactly that, implicitly favoring one-to-one technologies over one-to-many -- i.e. favoring mobile broadband over broadcast.