The Wireless Equivalent of Fracking

[Commentary] Freedom to innovate is a concept that was lost in the fiasco of the government's recent review and quashing of a proposed merger of AT&T and T-Mobile. Regulators feared the wireless industry congealing into an uncompetitive duopoly of AT&T and Verizon thanks to an alleged shortage of regulated spectrum. Yet this picture was already being utterly upended by the mobile equivalent of fracking.

The mobile equivalent of fracking is Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi is free, unregulated spectrum, separate from the regulated spectrum that mobile operators buy from the government. Faster than anyone might have guessed, Wi-Fi is blowing up the distinction between fixed and wireless networks and exerting subtle but serious downward pressure on what cellular operators can charge for access to their cellular networks. You, me or the kid down the block can set up a Wi-Fi hot spot that, if open to the public, allows free high-speed access to anybody within a radius of a few hundred feet. Like fracking, only later have big companies noticed the potential and begun rolling out professionally-managed Wi-Fi networks to help deliver mobile broadband coverage without the huge costs (including spectrum costs) of building a cellular network.