You Can't Coach Height: A Winning Spectrum Strategy

[Commentary] Remember college football great Doug Flutie? He had a lot of great attributes. But he was 5' 10". And while he had some great moments, let's face it, he was destined to be a star... in Canadian football. He had a career very different from that of 6'2' Joe Montana, 6'4' Tom Brady, or 6'5' "Big Ben" Roethlisberger of Pittsburgh. The point is this: Unless we get more spectrum, we as a country are destined to be the Doug Flutie of mobile broadband. Spectrum is like height. If you don't have it, it's pretty hard to be in the big leagues. As they say, you can't coach height. Now it's not an exact analogy. Technology and other capital inputs can help overcome the lack of spectrum. But let's not kid ourselves. Lack of spectrum will mean that our mobile service will be more expensive and of a poorer quality than if we had more of it. And that's very bad news unless we figure out a way to solve that problem. Why? Mobile broadband is going to be the fastest growing segment in communications ecosystem. This is potentially a fantastic story for America. It's the story of an America where citizens have access to information everywhere, and where entrepreneurs have the opportunity to reach consumers in ways never before possible, were no one has to be a prisoner of geography. And, this story becomes even greater as we enter the era of pervasive computing, where devices and machines of every kind become "smart" by virtue of the wireless connections to the Internet. But none of this can happen without spectrum.