Editorial Board
FCC Should Stop Worrying and Learn to Love Spectrum Market: View
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Julius Genachowski, the Federal Communications Commission chairman, thinks the end is near. His evangelizing isn’t spiritual but digital: The economy of the future depends on smartphones, tablet computers and other wireless devices, and yet the U.S. faces a crippling spectrum shortage, he says.
Genachowski is right to worry about the U.S.’s digital future. Nearly 70 million people have a smartphone, which can use 24 times more airwave capacity than a regular cell phone. Tablet computers, now owned by about 11 million people, can use 100 times more capacity. A spectrum crunch would mean slower connections, longer downloads and dropped calls.