
FCC spectrum auction bidding ends at $19.6B - prostoalex
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-wireless-auction-idUSKBN15P2QF
======
DannyBee
So, basically, this was a complete and total bust:

    
    
      In June, the FCC said sellers had initially sought $86.4 
      billion for 126 megahertz of television airwaves taken from 
      broadcasters to be sold for wireless use.
    
      Many analysts had expected broadcasters to earn 
      substantially more in the auction, with some forecasting in 
      2016 $30 billion in proceeds.
    
    

This is the spectrum that would have been used for the "tv whitespace"
wireless (except now you could do it amazingly better with clear spectrum)

I guess the analysts don't realize that a lot of these guys don't need tons
more spectrum, they just want to prevent others from using it.

Don't worry though, our FCC chief is on it: "FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said the
closing of bidding is a "major milestone," adding the spectrum will boost
wireless service."

No idea how, since even with the fcc rules around use, they'll do pretty much
nothing.

Hey, you know what also would have boosted it? Having the people who actually
gave a crap, and were trying to make wireless available to _everyone_ by using
this, do it. Or worse, we'll see wonderful devices that only work with
specific carriers.

To be fair though, congress literally forced them to auction it after massive
lobbying from telcos and isps. I'm sure though, that those same congressman
will not remember to ask why the hell the auction did so badly if they needed
the spectrum so much.

This spectrum all would have been better off in the hands of people trying to
actually boost our economy, and it would have been worth a lot more in 20b to
help free people from the iron grip of broadband non-competition.

~~~
leereeves
> Having the people who actually gave a crap, and were trying to make wireless
> available to everyone by using this, do it.

Who are these people, who might "help free people from the iron grip of
broadband non-competition"?

~~~
DannyBee
The whitespaces project the FCC was involved in doing, for example, was open,
and involved a very large number of non-telcos who wanted to produce devices,
and in fact, produced working prototypes. It was open. Anyone could do it as
long as they could produce a device that met specs.

I get your sarcasm in that you clearly seem to think that everyone just wants
to lock everyone else in differently, but at least, the other envisioned use
for this spectrum was, in fact, similar to WiFi today. Unlicensed use by spec
compliant devices.

I don't think you can reasonably argue that 2.4ghz/5ghz wifi would have been
better off being auctioned off.

In fact, wifi would be even _better_ had it had more spectrum to work with.

~~~
Eridrus
I don't know too much about this topic, but WiFi seems different since the
signal is meant to be pretty local, which has lead us to 5GHz which is meant
to penetrate less.

It seems like such a hands off approach to spectrum that is meant to cover a
larger area could lead to a situation where it's defacto assigned to whoever
deployed in an area first, because deploying additional infrastructure makes
no sense due to congestion.

------
jimrandomh
Was any of this allocated to unlicensed/consumer usage? There's a serious
shortage of uncrowded public spectrum in cities, and a few good channels for
802.11something would do a lot more good than giving the same spectrum to a
cell phone carrier.

~~~
mdasen
Of the 84MHz that's going to be cleared, 14MHz of it is going to be for
unlicensed use ([https://www.fcc.gov/about-fcc/fcc-initiatives/incentive-
auct...](https://www.fcc.gov/about-fcc/fcc-initiatives/incentive-auctions)).

To be fair to the wireless carriers, they're paying for it. The broadcasters
wouldn't give up their spectrum without getting paid to relocate or shut down.
They wanted around $10B to clear the 84MHz (initially they wanted $86B to
clear 126MHz). Without those billions, that spectrum would continue to be used
for broadcast television. While wireless carriers might not be the best thing
in society, I think they'll use that spectrum better than broadcasters who are
heavily under-using that spectrum.

Personally, I wish that the FCC licenses were temporary and so they could re-
evaluate every 20-50 years without having to do so much wrangling, but that
also has problems in terms of corporate planning, consistency, device
obsolescence, etc. and would get very political. Any holder of a temporary
license would argue that _their_ spectrum shouldn't be disrupted because they
do such a great service to society.

~~~
wbl
There is a secondary market. If you buy out a licensee and say "hey, I can
offer newer more profitable service with similar emissions" the FCC will let
you.

~~~
mdasen
So, theoretically, you could start a wireless company by getting some spectrum
from a TV station and then showing that the emissions will be similar enough
that the FCC will be fine with it.

The problem is that to provide competitive wireless service, you often need to
assemble licenses for a large enough geographic area and many existing
licenses will be geographically constrained. If I negotiate with Channel X in
New York, that doesn't mean that same channel will sell to me in Boston. That
makes it very hard to standardize a band. Worse, because of the spacing for
broadcast channels, you might not be able to use a frequency in an adjacent
market. Plus, how close to the boundary of the station's radius can you put a
cell site?

Plus, with a UHF TV station, you're talking about a 6MHz block. Adjacent
channels aren't available within a market. Maybe 6 stations in a market? The
big 4 aren't likely to shut down, but are more likely willing to move, but
then it's really the FCC that's accommodating a bunch of that value. It gets a
little complicated.

I mean, this auction is going to be clearing 84MHz of spectrum without
requiring a lot of stations shutting down by re-packing them. If you bought 4
stations in a market, you'd have 24MHz and be down 4 television stations
(which a lot of people still use). By splitting off the band, they're able to
use most of it rather than having to coordinate market to market with the old
broadcast TV.

Honestly, I wish that the FCC could/would mandate that they can force in-kind
trades for minimal money because $10B going to the broadcasters seems like a
lot.

The process is easier when you own a band (like Dish) and can get the FCC to
allow you to use it in a new way like authorizing terrestrial usage rather
than just satellite.

Secondary markets can be great, but communication services often means band
standardization and enough geographic area that people will use your service.

------
NelsonMinar
This is the auction to consolidate television broadcasts, to free up some UHF
space for other uses. Here's some background beyond what the article says. If
anyone has a summary / picture of exactly what frequencies become available
and what their bandwidth is, I'd love to see it.

The FCC's page for the auction. Includes a nifty dashboard view of the
bidding. [https://www.fcc.gov/about-fcc/fcc-initiatives/incentive-
auct...](https://www.fcc.gov/about-fcc/fcc-initiatives/incentive-auctions)

The Wikipedia article has some of the history:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrum_reallocation#Broadcas...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrum_reallocation#Broadcast_incentive_auction)

~~~
revelation
It seems impossible to find what spectrum they have actually sold here, just
meaningless bandwidth numbers (I'm happy to sell you 1 GHz of spectrum any
time, I'll tell you the carrier).

Apparently it is UHF channel 30-51, or 566-692 MHz.

~~~
upofadown
Actually, UHF TV channels 38-51 (614-698). Channel 37 is the radio astronomy
hole which now gets to be part of the guard band between TV and wireless. So
in one sense the outcome is fairly optimal in that there is less spectrum
wasted on the guard band.

------
ericabiz
Is there any plan for the FCC to address Wifi issues with spectrum auctions
like this?

Right now, Wifi is becoming practically unusable in large apartment complexes
or open spaces like conference centers due to the large number of devices
competing for spectrum. I'd be interested to hear if there are any FCC plans
or open standards that could resolve this.

~~~
tedunangst
High frequency wifi like 60ghz that doesn't go through walls.

~~~
throwaway2048
if only my apartment didnt have walls.

------
davidf18
It is good news that the auction raised less than expected. It shouldn't be
auctioned at all. The cell phone providers simply pass on the costs of
spectrum to customers. The government should want to make cell phone use as
low-cost as possible to encourage its use.

------
NateyJay
Does auctioning channels off to the highest bidder result in the best use of
the spectrum?

~~~
upofadown
Not really. It tends to lead to a situation where in a particular area you can
only use the spectrum that is owned by a service you subscribe to. So if you
are on Big Bobs Phonz when it is busy (or you would just like more bandwidth)
you can't pay to use Medium Sally's Wavz spectrum without a separate
subscription. In rural areas things can get fairly weird, where every major
company has to provide coverage (and redundant equipment) to ensure any sort
of continuity of service.

So the problems are non-optimal spectrum utilization and pointlessly redundant
cell sites.

You could extend the idea of municipal owned last mile broadband to wireless
as it is more or less the same problem. But then there would be no point in
having spectrum auctions. Governments have gotten used to the money they get
for awarding spectrum monopolies so I don't see the municipal wireless idea
going anywhere anytime soon.

------
revelation
An extra $20B in income for the Government that the carriers will then spend
the better part of the next 10 years recouping through their usual business
practices like maintaining quasi-monopolies, ridiculous usage limits, massive
over-subscription, anti-net-neutrality practices like "most favored streaming
service" and other regressive, growth-inhibiting moves.

There is this "pure capitalist" ring to allocating spectrum through auction
but the practical effects have been devastating. It's trading $20B in income
now for stifling the growth that _dumb, unrestricted, fast mobile pipes_ would
offer to the remainder of the economy.

~~~
tptacek
That's what the regulators told Coase when he proposed auctions.

The problem with this argument is that it presumes spectrum would be allocated
productively (or "fairly") in the absence of an auction. But that historically
wasn't the case, and isn't the case with any number of other scarce resources
doled out by governments.

Even among good-faith claimants, there is competition, obstinacy,
incompetence, and waste; those things are fundamental to all of enterprise.
That's true of auction winners as well, of course, but at least we're (a)
getting revenue for the resource, and (b) forcing people to put their money
where their mouth is: you don't write a 9-10-figure check without having at
least some earthly clue of how you'll put the thing you bought to use.

~~~
revelation
Yet we've put a bunch of 2.4 GHz spectrum out there with essentially "here you
go, please channel hop, use up to those dBm" and it certainly has been a
vastly, vastly more productive use than any single one of those carrier
spectrum auctions.

And why did that happen? They probably figured it was worthless to auction
given the attenuation. So if something nets minus dollars in your auction
scheme but trillions of economic value, hey, I think we're still waiting for
some data to come in on this thesis.

~~~
zanny
This is the reality of light frequencies. We restrict all of them, and have
only a whitelist of actually usable open spectrum that everyone crowds in.

What we really need is just a blacklist of low frequencies for emergency
coding and military use, while the rest are open. Intentional interference
would still be illegal as it is now, because that is a disjoint law
independent of whether spectrum is private or public.

~~~
closeparen
Some wireless systems _need to work_. We cannot lose the lead in a Broadway
show, security radio at a major event, time synchronization, air traffic
control, or the ability to make a 911 call because someone wants to torrent a
TV series in 4k. "Sorry, spectrum is crowded today, go home" is not a viable
option for the many businesses and situations that depend on RF the way it is
for WiFi in a crowded apartment complex.

------
zackmorris
I'm a little unclear about this. Is this a lease or a sale? As spectrum is
part of the commons, then amortized over forever the price should be, well,
infinite.

~~~
joecool1029
It's a sale.

------
amelius
What happens to signals that are technically within the spectrum, but are
being transmitted in a "directed-beam" between two locations?

~~~
boznz
its like speeding.. it's fine so long as nobodies watching.

If your low power and nobodies inbetween or in the overspill region then keep
calm and carry on, if not reconsider getting licensed modems

