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Supercommittee says sell spectrum
On Friday, Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.) and Sen. Patrick Toomey (R-Pa.) - all members of the congressional supercommittee, sent a letter to President Obama saying spectrum can bring in a lot of money and they want the President to free up some more spectrum (even though he has spectrum auctions in his jobs bill). The Hill excerpts the letter:
"Spectrum auctions would generate tens of billions of dollars in auction proceeds, help the Select Committee meet its deficit reduction goals, stimulate billions in private-sector capital investment, provide a job-creating boost to the economy, and ensure that America continues to lead the world in wireless broadband innovation," they wrote.
The lawmakers want a reply by Friday.
Spectrum is the range of wireless bandwidth that we all use for all of our wireless communications.
Be it a cell phone, the WiFi on your computer or your TV/Satellite.
The government regulates and controls these bandwidths both from a "How to use it" point of view (Making sure we all agree on how to use these wireless waves) and the "Who own's it" point of view (Making sure that companies can have their own exclusive bandwidth range).
Allot of these wireless bandwidths are already used and paid for my companies like, Verizon, ATT, Tmobile etc, however there are still some ranges which are still owned by the government that are not being used any more, for example - the wireless bandwidth we used to use for our antenna based TV's and also wireless ranges which the military used but doesn't anymore.
As you can imagine in the world of ever growing demand for wireless data, where every cell phone comes with a data plan, these wireless bandwidth's have allot of value, which the government can use to sale them to the highest bidder.
Hope this helps :-)
