Wireless Internet

Cellphone carriers often call their most valuable radio-wave licenses “beachfront” property. As with real estate, it pays to be in a prime location. Government officials will test that thinking this month by selling some once-barren tracts of that virtual real estate in the upper reaches of the wireless spectrum. How much companies are willing to pay for them remains to be seen. The Federal Communications Commission began the first of two auctions for extremely high-frequency spectrum licenses, raising cash from a type of radio wave once considered useless for wireless service.

This study draws on participant observation and interviews with low-income adults in Chicago to show how the poor stay connected to phone service and mobile Internet through the possession of multiple phones, including those subsidized by government aid. The “accumulation” of phones by individuals is widely observed, though underexplored in scholarship. Popular media coverage in the US frames the possession of multiple phones by people in poverty as criminal or excessive.

While several slices of spectrum can carry mobile internet, the most promising for rural school districts is one the Federal Communications Commission first reserved for educational television broadcasts in the 1960s. Over three decades, the government gave away more than 2,000 spectrum licenses to school districts and education nonprofits, primarily in urban areas. But the FCC effectively stopped issuing such licenses in 1995, because many license holders weren’t using their spectrum, and instead making money by leasing it to commercial telecommunication companies.

At the start of 2018, a wide array of analysts predicted a dramatic upswing in the amount of money wireless network operators would spend improving their networks this year compared with spending in previous years. Indeed, the analysts at Deutsche Bank Research in February predicted nationwide carriers would increase their overall capex during 2018 by 14% over last year to $30.5 billion—which they pointed out would be the market’s biggest capex figure since 2014.

More than 10.7 million low-income households in the United States lack access to quality internet service. In cities like San Jose (CA), local governments are using streetlight poles to facilitate equitable access to high-speed internet to dramatically improve educational outcomes for low-income students and expand economic opportunity for their families.

The Federal Communications Commission's Brendan Carr is taking off the gloves in a fight with San Jose (CA) Mayor Sam Liccardo. “We must do better than Mayor Liccardo’s failed broadband policies,” Commissioner Carr wrote on Twitter  in response to a Liccardo op-ed. “Under his 3+ year leadership, San Jose approved zero small cells-ZERO-depriving residents of broadband options.

Several elements involved in the deployment of Smart Cities rely on Federal Communications Commission activity or involvement. Let’s explore some of the policy issues and discussions that may be necessary to make Smart Cities happen in the near term.

Cable Internet service providers (ISPs) can make smart cities become a reality and offer city planners successful case studies and useful planning steps for how to make their communities digital leaders.

The support structures that assist low-income families cannot work unless those in need have functional means of communication. Doctors monitoring children with fragile health, employers who can offer an extra shift to a struggling worker, nutrition support programs like SNAP which must confirm income eligibility — all these must be able to communicate with a low-income person, often within limited timeframes. Our collective and individual economic well-being is dependent on communications tools.

The Federal Communications Commission proposed to make up to 1200 megahertz of spectrum available for use by unlicensed devices in the 6 GHz band (5.925-7.125 GHz). The proposed rules are designed to allow unlicensed devices to operate in the 6 GHz band without interfering with the operation of the licensed services that will continue to use this spectrum.