This is great news for consumers and for the companies that will make innovative use of this spectrum. (Dolly Parton's expert opinion notwithstanding.)
This bit of deregulation will certainly open up a new market.
Sometimes I wonder if broadcast TV would still exist if it weren't for federal law. They should auction off its part of the spectrum and see if anybody is still willing to pay to keep it in existence.
I wouldn't necessarily expect white space devices to work that well. Since 700MHz signals propagate so well you'll have to worry about interference coming from a block away instead of next door. And if the device mistakenly thinks it detects a TV signal it will shut off.
- Electric utilities (at first, GE and Westinghouse) over the same period
- The German chemical industry (again, over roughly the same period)
The Econ-101 explanation is that a competent first mover in an industry that delivers an especially high return to scale can cut prices fast enough that no new competitor in the market could ever recoup the cost of entry. So nobody bothers, and the monopoly is free to set prices until the government steps in to bring down the price or nationalize the firm.
In other words, most of the entities we traditionally associate with the term "monopoly" arise naturally and then get special legal status to recapture some of the value they generate.
So far I've seen no business models for this new technology. So who knows who is going to dominate. But you can't rule out incumbents now or in the future.
