Abstract
Skyrocketing mobile data demands caused by increasing adoption of smartphones, tablet computers, and broadband-equipped laptops will soon swamp the capacity of our nation’s wireless networks, a fact that promises to stagnate a $1 trillion slice of the nation’s economy. Among scholars and policymakers studying this looming “spectrum crisis,” consensus is developing that regulators must swiftly reclaim spectrum licensed to other industries and reallocate those rights to wireless providers. In this interdisciplinary piece, we explain in succinct terms why this consensus is wrong. With data demands increasing at an exponential rate, spectrum reallocation plans that promise only linear growth are destined to fail. What regulators should focus on, instead, are policies that encourage the sluggish incumbents presently dominating the wireless industry to roll out new networking technologies (like tiered network architectures, cognitive radio, and multicell MIMO) that together may allow exponential increases in spectral efficiency.
Keywords: Broadband, Frequency allocation (Telecommunications), United States
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