FCC chief seeks more spectrum

<b>Wireless firms asked to free up resources for new services</b><br><br>NEW ORLEANS - Federal Communications Commission Chairman William Kennard asked the nation's mobile phone companies Monday to

Tuesday, February 29th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

Wireless firms asked to free up resources for new services

NEW ORLEANS - Federal Communications Commission Chairman William Kennard asked the nation's mobile phone companies Monday to make more spectrum available for new wireless services and more reliable communications.

"We are running out of spectrum, particularly the quality spectrum. ... We just can't afford to have a spectrum drought in this country," Mr. Kennard said in a keynote discussion at Wireless 2000, the industry's largest trade show.

Spectrum is the airspace over which television signals, cellular phone calls and other communications traffic travels. It's a natural resource allocated by the FCC, sometimes for free and more recently by having companies bid for it at auction. Spectrum is divided up by signal frequency and the quantity of information that it can carry.

While the total amount available doesn't change, companies must battle over the blocks that will perform the right functions in the markets they want to serve. And spectrum is particularly in dema!
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nd now because companies are offering more new services, such as high-speed data, that require higher capacity, known as "broadband" spectrum.

Two large blocks are being auctioned this year: frequencies used for channels 60 and 69, which will come free as television stations change over to digital transmissions in the next few years, and another block that's been re-auctioned because it brought such high prices the first time that the buyers couldn't pay what they bid. But that's not enough, Mr. Kennard said.

Secondary markets are emerging in which companies buy and sell extra capacity on traditional wireline telecommunications networks by posting supply and demand on Web sites. Mr. Kennard said mobile phone companies should create a similar market for the wireless spectrum so that unused airspace could be allocated on a temporary basis, such as making more capacity available for cell phone calls during a big convention.

"I envision a world in which wireless bandwidth i!
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s as plentiful as the restaurants I see here in New Orleans on Bourbon Street, and as reliable as a wireless phone," Mr. Kennard said.

He also suggested that wireless phone manufacturers label phones to show consumers how much interference they can expect on different models.