mobile broadband

Mobile carriers buy 70MHz UHF slice for $20 billion

13 February 2017 by Steve Blum
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The auction is over and mobile broadband carriers gained 70 MHz of spectrum in the 600 MHz band, at a cost just under $20 billion. After four cycles of downward bidding by television companies willing to sell their channel assignments followed by upward bidding by wireless companies wanting to buy them, the Federal Communications Commission’s incentive auction ended on Friday.

The downward, selling price auction ended last month, with TV stations willing to accept $10 billion in return for giving up 84 MHz of UHF spectrum.… More

TV-to-mobile spectrum transfer heads to fourth auction round

6 December 2016 by Steve Blum
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Less equals less, when it comes to spectrum auctions. That seems to be the lesson the Federal Communications Commission is learning as it ends its third stage of reverse-and-forward auctions for frequencies currently used by television broadcasters and coveted by mobile carriers.

But not coveted as much as broadcasters think, apparently. The FCC opened the bidding from mobile carriers and closed it couple hours later when it became clear that the price they are willing to pay isn’t anywhere near what broadcasters want in exchange for giving it up.… More

Forward mobile spectrum auction goes into reverse

23 October 2016 by Steve Blum
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Maybe it’s just a Rockford?

Well, that didn’t take long. Two hours after the Federal Communications Commission starting taking bids from mobile carriers (and, perhaps, would-be mobile carriers) for 90 MHz of television spectrum, it shut the auction down. Instead of stretching out for several bidding sessions over many days, or even weeks, the second stage of the incentive auction ended fast, and on a down note.

Mobile carriers were willing to pay $21.5 billion for the 90 MHz that was on offer.… More

Shifting spectrum from TV to mobile broadband still looks expensive

14 October 2016 by Steve Blum
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Broadcasters have reduced their selling price by $32 billion in the second round of the Federal Communications Commission’s incentive auction, which ended yesterday. Even so, there’s still a big gap between that and what mobile broadband carriers were willing to pay in the first round.

The auction is aimed at moving legacy TV stations off of prime UHF real estate so mobile broadband companies can use the bandwidth instead.

The second, reverse round of the auction began last month, with 90 MHz of prime mobile broadband spectrum on the line (and another 24 MHz for unlicensed uses and guard band duty).… More

Mobile carriers losing the data upgrade race to Californian demand

12 October 2016 by Steve Blum
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Click for the full picture.

You can get more bits per second from mobile broadband carriers in California, but your odds of getting those faster speeds at any given moment are dropping. That’s what the California Public Utilities Commission’s mobile field testing result are showing. You can read the excellent blog post by commission staffer Rob Osborne here. He shows that mobile broadband speeds are increasing, but sums it up diplomatically: “it’s hard to say, but it appears the likelihood of getting the average speed at a particular location is lower than before”.… More

For results, trim down Pai's broadband plan to an FCC punch list

15 September 2016 by Steve Blum
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Use the home field advantage.

Earlier this week, FCC commissioner Ajit Pai offered a long checklist of actions he’d like to take to improve Internet access and promote economic development, in rural and inner city communities in particular. Those items fall into two categories: things he wants congress to do – good luck with that – and things the Federal Communications Commission can do on its own authority.

Pai is proposing gigabit opportunity zones – low income areas where service providers would get federal tax breaks to improve broadband service and entrepreneurs would likewise benefit if they located there.… More

High, perhaps unrealistically high, price asked for TV spectrum

1 July 2016 by Steve Blum
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Golden.

It’ll cost $86 billion to free up 100 MHz of broadcast television spectrum for licensed mobile broadband use and another 26 MHz for guard bands and unlicensed users. That’s the result from the reverse auction run by the Federal Communications Commission for television station owners, who were supposed to progressively bid down the price they were willing to accept in exchange for giving up their assigned channels.

That figure is more than twice as much as originally expected.… More

Bill forcing California cities to lease cell sites, scrap permits magically appears

20 June 2016 by Steve Blum
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Camouflaged with associated equipment. Can’t get any smaller than that.

Using a legislative maneuver delicately referred to as gut and amend, assemblyman Mike Gatto (D – Los Angeles) transmogrified a bill about natural gas storage into a free pass for mobile phone companies to 1. install cell sites pretty much anywhere they want with little or no oversight by local governments and 2. force local governments to lease publicly owned facilities for the purpose (h/t to Omary Masry at the City and County of San Francisco for the pointer).… More

Mobile broadband doesn't perform as advertised, CPUC tells FCC

13 June 2016 by Steve Blum
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Click for the big, ugly picture.

Don’t believe the broadband speed levels that mobile carriers – AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon – claim to deliver. That’s what the California Public Utilities Commission is telling its counterpart in Washington, the Federal Communications Commission. Unlike the FCC, the CPUC has a rigorous, longstanding mobile data testing program that includes analysis based on what an actual customer would experience.

If you take Verizon at its word, for example, 99.6% of Californian homes would be getting mobile broadband service at the CPUC’s minimum 6 Mbps download and 1.5 Mbps upload speeds.… More

Auction underway to free up 100 MHz for mobile broadband

3 June 2016 by Steve Blum
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Worth billions now.

The long delayed double auction aimed at transferring 100 MHz of UHF spectrum from television broadcasting to mobile Internet service is finally underway. The first step is a reverse auction where television station owners bid down the price they’re willing accept to give up their channel assignments. It started this week with one daily round of bids on Tuesday and Wednesday, and stepped up to two rounds a day yesterday.

All totalled, the FCC wants to set a price for 126 MHz of UHF spectrum in the 600 MHz band.… More