There may be more wireless networks in the heavens than we have dreamt of.
Some of Silicon Valley’s most successful investors – James Barksdale and John Doerr, for example – are trying to buy portions of the radio spectrum that will become available February 19, 2009 when local TV stations are forced to shutter their analog broadcasts and send out only digital signals, according to a report in the New York Times.
The US government mandated that the radio spectrum be reallocated to public safety organizations and commercial broadband networks. Barksdale, of Netscape fame, and Doerr have joined an investment group called Frontline Wireless, headed by former FCC chairman Reed Hundt, to bid for the spectrum when the FCC puts it up in an auction.
Frontline Wireless is pushing a technology that, it says, would allow the spectrum to be used for both wireless Internet and public safety emergency communications.
The spectrum that’s coming free allows signals to penetrate buildings and travel long distances, making it easier for wireless companies to offer broadband services in heavily populated areas and to reach less-populated areas with fewer cell towers.
“I think we’re starved for spectrum for digital applications in this country,” Doerr said in the article. “The idea that we can have one or more great new digital networks is very exciting.” Doerr said the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development last year ranked the US 12th in the world last year in broadband penetration.
CTIA, the mobile phone industry’s trade group, opposes Frontline’s proposal. Its members don’t want another competitor. Google supports it. It wants to put its search engine and ads on everything that is used to communicate.
The auction could take place as early as this fall and is expected to bring in upwards of $30 billion.