Making the case today -- not five years' hence -- for more mobile broadband spectrum

[Commentary] While no operator will admit to being spectrum-strapped today, no one but Clearwire will say they’re flush with frequencies either.

Even then, Clearwire is looking to sell off a sizable chunk of its 2.5 GHz spectrum to raise cash for the next phase of its WiMax build, which could leave Clearwire and majority owner Sprint in the same position as the other operators. At some point they'll need to go back to the markets or to the Federal Communications Commission seeking for more frequencies, and if their new 4G services are half as successful as they’re hoping, they'll be that point could be sooner rather than later. It could be two years, it could be four—or it could be a single year—but operators need gobs of new spectrum if they are to keep the mobile broadband revolution stoked and surging. The FCC has identified 500 MHz spectrum that it hopes to make available for mobile broadband use in the next 10 years. About 300 MHz of that spectrum may be available within 5 years. Not all that spectrum is optimal for wide area wireless network coverage, and a lot comes with encumbrances. But the plan has been widely hailed by the industry as a good start to addressing the future broadband crunch.

As regulators are finalizing these plans, though, there's two things they should address beyond just making as much spectrum as possible available for mobile broadband use: 1) Make it contiguous and 2) make it cheap.