FCC spectrum auction bidding ends at $19.6B

Re:FCC spectrum auction bidding ends at $19.6B by DannyBee on Sunday February 12, 2017 @01:24PM (#13629677)

The whitespaces project the FCC was involved in doing, for example, was open, and involved a very large number of non-telcos who wanted to produce devices, and in fact, produced working prototypes. It was open. Anyone could do it as long as they could produce a device that met specs.

I get your sarcasm in that you clearly seem to think that everyone just wants to lock everyone else in differently, but at least, the other envisioned use for this spectrum was, in fact, similar to WiFi today. Unlicensed use by spec compliant devices.

I don't think you can reasonably argue that 2.4ghz/5ghz wifi would have been better off being auctioned off.

In fact, wifi would be even better had it had more spectrum to work with.

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Re:FCC spectrum auction bidding ends at $19.6B by Eridrus on Sunday February 12, 2017 @01:38PM (#13629760)

I don't know too much about this topic, but WiFi seems different since the signal is meant to be pretty local, which has lead us to 5GHz which is meant to penetrate less.

It seems like such a hands off approach to spectrum that is meant to cover a larger area could lead to a situation where it's defacto assigned to whoever deployed in an area first, because deploying additional infrastructure makes no sense due to congestion.

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