FCC plans to extend cellular data spectrum with another 90MHz

21st June, 2010 by adina
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The FCC revealed a strategy to change the destination of 90MHz of the wireless spectrum to cellular Internet services. The members of the FCC’s Spectrum Task Force are planning to take a part of the mobile satellite band which is now largely unused and use it to extend the spectrum used by cellular Internet access.

This expansion is included in a larger strategy of the National Broadband Plan made by FCC, which speaks about a spectrum gap that should exist between availability and requirement. According to this plan, 500MHz of spectrum should be switched to long-range data usage. To achieve this, the FCC has already taken some action like clearing the 4G plans of Harbinger and negotiating for a portion of 35MHz of the weather balloon bands.

Compared to landlines, cellular access is more sensitive to bandwidth problems, due to easy interference when the amount of usable frequency is limited. There were objections to the FCC’s actions coming from radio and TV broadcasters, because they risk losing valuable channel space.


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