Airwave sale sparks a scramble

AIRWAVE SALE SPARKS SCRAMBLE
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Jim Puzzanghera and Jessica Guynn]
They're the superheroes of the airwaves, invisible signals that can carry data faster than a speeding bullet, powerful enough to penetrate the thickest walls of homes and office buildings, able to leap long distances between transmission towers in a single bound. The federal government's decision to auction off this prime public spectrum next month could change the wireless world. The complicated auction run by the Federal Communications Commission will take weeks to complete and is expected to raise upward of $20 billion for the U.S. Treasury. It has the potential to make talking on a cellphone, surfing the Web on a mobile device and even watching television on your handset easier and cheaper. Even though the coveted airwaves won't be available until early 2009, when TV broadcasters give them up as they convert to all-digital signals, they're already transforming the mobile marketplace. Federal officials hope the spectrum will produce another national competitor to existing wireless companies and lead to the creation of the long-desired "third pipe" of high-speed Internet access to consumers to vie with phone and cable service.
http://www.latimes.com/business/printedition/la-fi-spectrum1dec01,1,5217...
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