Wireless carriers beg FCC for spectrum, blame smartphones - Ars. Mobile carriers in the US have been telling the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for months that they're in a bad way—450MHz of total spectrum just isn't enough to keep up with consumer demand for wireless services.
As the companies explained in various FCC filings over the summer, the current strain on their networks is caused by a veritable data tsunami that has swept the country in the last few years, and they want the government to make more spectrum available to solve the problem. The big driver of mobile data use has been smartphones. Put an iPhone, Pre, BlackBerry, or Android handset in the hands of someone who previously made only voice calls and sent a few text messages, and data use skyrockets.
According to T-Mobile, users of its G1 Android-powered phone use 50 times the data of average T-Mobile customers. "WhiteFi" could be worth $15bn a year—and fix climate. Licensed spectrum came into being for a reason.
In the early days of radio, unlicensed radio stations in urban areas regularly got into "power wars" with rival stations, leading to plenty of static. Compared to this free-for-all, the licensing of radio stations in the US, and then the creation of the Federal Communications Commission, helped to solve such problems. But licensed spectrum created problems of its own. The major one involved the difficulty and expense of getting a license, a problem that continues to throw up huge barriers to entry for any new company that wants to launch a national cell phone network of its own.
Google Wave Preview. As we announced in August 2010, we are not continuing active development of Google Wave as a stand-alone product.
Google Wave will be shut down in April 2012. This page details the implication of the turn down process for Google Wave. Stage 1: Google Wave is read-only -- January 31, 2012.