Just Give it Away!

Art Earl, director of strategic development at the tech firm Hypres in Elmsford, N.Y., offered an outside-the-box idea in an FCC proceeding in which everything is on the table for discussion.

“My idea is for the government to deregulate the 700 MHz band and just give it away for a few years for small businesses to develop new revolutionary technologies and give the U.S. a technology booster shot without spending any money,” Earl said. “If you have to compromise on deregulation, then perhaps only devices blessed by the PSST and FCC could be used at this frequency range. This will help stimulate innovation in a significant and meaningful way and perhaps pave the way for the U.S. to re-emerge as a significant global power in broadband wireless. Look at how much the prior deregulation of 5 GHz and 2 GHz bands have stimulated the economy.”

Actually I could support that kind of plan. Especially if the FCC is going to continue with any sort of private-public stupidity like the last auction. Fact I would go so far as to recommend the following –

Three Bands —

• One Opened but licensed band for any sort of experimentation/development.
• A guard band.
• A closed license band for Metro - Public service use.

Doing it this way solves a lot of problems. The Commission avoids a nasty legal battle with the NAB. US industry/inventors get a band to develop new technologies with given appropriate power and spectrum usage. The Metro wireless might get a new lease on life. The convenient factor is that most of the first responder orgs are city departments for the most part anyway. Using spread spectrum technology and appropriate software it would be quite possible to leverage the use of the band for both public and private use.

More at RCR.