Will More Spectrum Really Help Drive Rural Broadband?

[Commentary] While the Federal Communications Commission may talk about spectrum as the chokepoint for wireless broadband, I'd argue the bigger choke points are when too many people are having to share the same tower.

You'd think having too many people sharing the same tower would be a much bigger deal in urban areas, but that isn't necessarily the case as there's such a lower density of towers in rural areas that each tower has to cover users within a much larger radius. Also, having access to high capacity, affordable backhaul so these towers can actually deliver the traffic that spectrum makes possible can be a really big challenge in rural areas. Plus it's a challenge that requires a lot more effort to resolve than freeing up more spectrum as it means having to invest in laying fiber. I'm not willing to be so bold as to suggest that a shortage of spectrum is not having some impact on depressing investment in rural broadband, but it seems that spectrum is likely the least of the many barriers to deployment.