Spectrum Crunch: Will New Technologies Sustain Wireless Data Demand?

  • By 2016, mobile data traffic will grow by a factor of 18, according to Cisco, or by a factor of 25, if Bell Labs estimates are accurate.
  • The Federal Communications Commission and cellular providers have both warned of a “spectrum crunch,” which would mean diminished service and higher costs for consumers. But as Technology Review reports, the big crunch might not be for quite a few years.
  • “We don’t have a spectrum crunch so much as we have a spectrum policy crunch,” says David Tennenhouse, vice president of technology policy at Microsoft. “The so-called ‘spectrum crunch’ really reflects artificial spectrum scarcity.”
  • “Part of the problem is simply hoarding: some companies have rights to more than they need, at times because business models didn’t pan out,” Technology Review suggests. “There’s a great deal of idle government-controlled spectrum, too.”
  • “The FCC is designing auctions so that the TV industry can release some of its spectrum next year,” the article continues.
  • Despite the concern about scarcity, much of the crunch actually arises from how the spectrum is leveraged. “Capacity depends on how efficiently spectrum is actually used in different places and at different times,” notes the article. “And when wireless networks are overloaded, the real culprit may be inefficient use of existing spectrum rather than a fundamental shortage.”
  • Improved technology could alleviate much of the strain. Wi-Fi towers offload data from cellular networks. Cheap shorter-range small cells — transmitters and receivers handling frequencies used by 3G and 4G networks — can help. Also, data can be encoded more efficiently so more information can be translated.
  • “Right now, we have a 15- to 20-year backlog of new technologies and architectures, including sharing and small cells, which can take us a long way into the future,” says Tennenhouse.

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