Obama wants more mobile spectrum available for that smart phone you insist on using
Obama wants more mobile spectrum available for that smart phone you insist on using
On Monday, President Obama issued a memorandum asking to almost double the commercially available wireless communication spectrum. As a nation, we’re doing more on our mobile devices than ever before, downloading music and movies, handling bigger files, more traffic. Meanwhile, there are parts of the radio spectrum that are owned by the government and private companies that are just sitting there not being used. So the administration’s plan is to hold an auction and sell off those frequencies to companies that might do something with them and increase the capacity to move large amounts of information wirelessly. The administration hopes that the opportunity to expand wireless capabilities will lead to more jobs as well.
So this could be a big issue for technology and for the online experience of anyone who wants to use the internet with a mobile device. We learn about the science of the spectrum as we talk with Marvin Sirbu, Professor of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University. And we speak with Darrell M. West, founding director of the Center for Technology and Innovation, at Brookings.
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