Logic and facts sometimes can contradict each other. Consider the fundamentals of spectrum value. One traditional underpinning of value, as it applies to communications spectrum, is that it has value because it is scarce.
That can be encapsulated easily: “You can use it or you can keep others from using it,” quips Armand Musey, Summit Ridge Group founder.
So if value comes from scarcity, then releasing more unlicensed spectrum should reduce scarcity value. But as Musey notes, the AWS-3 auctions suggested that “maybe is not happening.”
One might argue that it is “not happening yet,” but will, in the future. Historically, commercially-viable end user forms of wireless communication have been restricted to a rather limited set of frequencies.
Mobility, for example, has primarily relied on some bands between 800 MHz and 2.1 Mhz. As more frequencies are released, both licensed, shared and unlicensed, and as it becomes possible to use unlicensed spectrum in ways more analogous to communications based on use of licensed spectrum, scarcity value should decrease.
Of course, as Musey notes, we have not seen such effects so far. Still, “it is hard to see how how all the unlicensed spectrum will not put pressure on prices, eventually,” says Musey.
No comments:
Post a Comment