This is definitely a surprise, but it looks like AT&T finally read all the writing on the wall, and realized it was unlikely to win its fight with the DOJ and FCC and has officially killed its plan to try to purchase T-Mobile... meaning that it now has to pay the $4 billion breakup fee. While the trend of where this was heading was becoming increasingly obvious over the past few months, it's still pretty shocking on the whole. Getting big mergers like this through had become pretty standard, and AT&T (especially) excelled at the political dealing to make such things work. However, the growing public outcry and concerns over the lack of competition that would result seemed to finally have had a real impact.

One of the key talking points from AT&T in support of the T-Mobile merger is that it "needs" T-Mobile's spectrum in order to expand its planned 4G/LTE networks to cover 97% of the population. And, there's no doubt that having T-Mobile's spectrum will make it easier, but that's not the same as it being necessary. As Broadband Reports has been pointing out for a while, Verizon has less spectrum than AT&T but can cover the same 97% of the population with it. Apparently a lawyer for AT&T accidentally posted a document to the FCC's site that more or less admits that AT&T doesn't need T-Mobile's spectrum, and that it could invest $3.8 billion to catch up to Verizon in terms of LTE coverage. $3.8 billion is a fair bit of money, but it's a hell of a lot less than the $38 billion that it's spending for T-Mobile. Yes, AT&T also gets T-Mobile subscribers with that, but it certainly raises questions about AT&T's claims that it would be too "costly" to invest to get to 97% coverage with its existing spectrum. As BBR notes, the timing of the letter also suggests that AT&T knew it was planning to buy T-Mobile when it decided to claim that it would "not" build out its network, perhaps recognizing that this would help give it a talking point for why the merger should be allowed.

Over the years, we've noted that mobile phone jammers were getting more popular in the US, even though they're completely illegal. However, it looks like the FCC has had enough and has announced plans to start cracking down on both mobile phone jammers and GPS jammers. The initial crackdown appears to be targeted at companies selling such jammers, but it hints at going further than that. The concern, of course, is that these jammers don't discriminate and block all sorts of legitimate communication among others. Still, the usual excuse about how it may prevent emergency responders rings a little hollow. It wasn't that long ago that no one had mobile phones and emergency responding still seemed to work. Obviously, having working mobile phones can be quite beneficial, but the FCC shouldn't overplay its hand here. Just stick with the truth: a jammer interferes with a public resource.

Satellite-radio company Sirius XM has never been the best of friends with the FCC, thanks largely to the molasses-like speed with which the Commission moved to approve the Sirius-XM merger and the silly restrictions it attached to its approval -- measures which helped push the company into bankruptcy. The animosity is bubbling up again, as Sirius XM isn't happy that the FCC may soon allow some radio spectrum that's near the company's spectrum to be used for wireless broadband services. The spectrum in question is in the 2.3 GHz range. One chunk of it was auctioned off to telcos in 1997, and it's since been used for fixed backhaul transmissions for their networks, but the FCC (and the telcos) would like to see it used for wireless broadband services like WiMAX. An adjoining chunk is used by Sirius XM's network of terrestrial repeaters that complement its satellite signal coverage, and the company is concerned about those repeaters being overpowered and interfered with. This is the typical sort of posturing that comes out of any company who has spectrum that's "threatened" -- like broadcasters seeking to use regulation to stifle any competition from new technologies. The interference issues are important, but the FCC knows that, and typically works to ensure that they aren't a problem. What makes this objection from Sirius XM a little bit ironic, though, is that the the two companies have been cited in the past by the FCC because their terrestrial repeaters violated interference rules. Rules that allow for the more flexible use of spectrum -- while respecting interference -- are the best way forward for everyone, and like the NAB's spurious arguments against the Sirius-XM merger, the satellite company's objections should be rejected here.

Back in 2006, a startup called M2Z Networks asked the FCC to give it a sizable chunk of valuable spectrum for free, and in exchange, it would set up a nationwide wireless broadband network to offer free (and slow) "family-friendly" service and pay the government 5% of the revenues from a paid premium service also running on the network. We were skeptical of the plan because of its aggressive rollout schedule and the network's slow speed ("512 kbps" -- keep that figure in mind -- for the free tier/3 mbps for the paid tier), but mostly because of the huge expenditure required to build out a wireless network covering 95 percent of the US population -- expenditure which would be very difficult to recover from a free, slow service. The FCC wasn't convinced, either, and rejected M2Z's proposal in 2007, though that wasn't the end of it. A congresswoman introduced a bill tailor-made for M2Z's specs, but it went nowhere. Still, M2Z lives on, and it's now looking for a chunk of stimulus funding to start building its network.

It doesn't look like M2Z has updated its plan at all since 2006, doing nothing to address any of the concerns, beyond replacing the need for private investment with a second government handout, on top of its free spectrum. In particular, they don't seem to have upped their targets for the speed of their network. What the company was proposing wasn't exactly fast in 2006, is pretty pokey now, and will be even less attractive by the time its network would get up and running. In addition, it's worth clarifying that the "512 kbps" M2Z talks about is arrived at by adding the 384kbps downstream speed plus the 128 kbps upstream speed they plan to offer. That's a new trick we haven't seen before, even in the world of "up to" broadband speed advertising.

You don't really expect the Justice Department to be involved in the question of spectrum allocation, but it has suggested that the FCC free up more spectrum for broadband efforts. The reason is that this is coming from the antitrust division of the DoJ, and the hope is that with more spectrum, it can be allocated to upstart competitors which will increase competition in the not very competitive broadband market (and don't believe the telco lobbyists who claim otherwise).

Still, if we're talking about freeing up spectrum, shouldn't things go a bit further? We still have a situation where the FCC doesn't just allocate the spectrum, but also decides what it must be used for. We'd be much better off, and have a lot more competition, if companies were free to make use of spectrum in the way they felt could bring the best return -- and that companies who were granted spectrum rights also had the right to then resell those rights. While I'm still hopeful that new technologies will make spectrum scarcity a thing of the past, we still haven't seen enough evidence that the technology really works. So, in the meantime, the better solution is to get more spectrum on the market, and stop putting limitations on how it can be used.

If you look at how our radio spectrum is allocated today, you discover that TV broadcasters have a huge chunk of spectrum (that chart doesn't directly display how much spectrum is actually included -- I remember seeing another chart, which I can't find now, that shows proportionally how much more spectrum broadcasters have). This was given to them -- entirely for free -- years ago, when spectrum wasn't used for much. These days, however, spectrum is precious for so many different things, and certainly much of it could be put to better use. Of course, the broadcasters aren't thrilled with giving up any of their windfall. For years, they dragged their feet, kicking and screaming, about switching from analog to digital broadcasting, which was needed to reclaim some spectrum. More recently, they've been fighting attempts to use "white space" spectrum -- which is spectrum that's unused, but close to used spectrum. The broadcasters insist there will be interference, while technologists insist the technology is good enough to block interference.

So, it's interesting that, just as we're hearing of the first tests of white space networks, the FCC is also talking to broadcasters about other ways to reclaim some spectrum and put it to use on something more useful and productive. Apparently, the plan on the table right now would be for broadcasters to give up the spectrum in return for a cut of the revenue the government would get in auctioning off the spectrum for wireless use. Of course, some may find it distasteful that public spectrum that was given to these companies for free can then get sold off with at least some of the money going to those who never bought or truly "owned" the spectrum in the first place. But, given that the FCC set things up in a way where it basically created a de facto ownership structure of the spectrum, it's difficult to see any reasonable way to get that spectrum back without paying for it.

In the link above, Adam Thierer suggests we just give the current holders property rights in the spectrum, and assume that they'll then sell it off to those who can do something more innovative with it (or change and do something more innovative themselves). I've long been a proponent of giving up the ridiculous idea of having the government decide how each slice of spectrum must be used. Why not let the companies who control the various slices of spectrum make use of it as they see fit? It seems more likely that we'd get more efficient uses of the spectrum. So, it's good to see more thinking about ways to put some of that spectrum to better use, but it would be nice if we allowed the market, rather than the government, to figure out how to best use it.

Part of the Federal Communications Commission's job is to regulate the airwaves, ensuring that radio devices don't unduly interfere with each other and turn the spectrum into a morass of noise. Generally this entails making sure that licensed radio and TV stations are staying within the frequencies they're assigned and within certain power levels, and also cracking down on people broadcasting in licensed frequencies without licenses. One tool in the FCC's investigative arsenal is the ability to inspect radio gear, like TV stations' transmitters, but the Commission also says that this extends to things like WiFi routers, cordless and cell phones, remote garage door openers, TV remotes, or "anything using RF energy." This means that if you have any of those products, or anything with a radio, the FCC thinks it has the right to search your house (via Boing Boing). The FCC contends the authority stems from the Communications Act of 1934, but as Threat Level points out, it's never been challenged in court, mainly because it's a relatively recent phenomenon for essentially every American household to have so many radio devices. While it's unlikely that the FCC will begin raiding homes to confiscate WiFi routers and garage door openers, there is speculation that should FCC agents enter a home and see evidence of unrelated criminal behavior, that evidence can be used for criminal prosecution. This could give law enforcement a potential back door around search and seizure laws, a move which certainly merits some concern.

There's been a lot of talk over the years about the various studies and statistics used to measure broadband in the US. Very often the figures don't tell a completely accurate story, so there's been a push for the government to get better data as a part of the formation of a national broadband plan. It's clear, though, that wireless access will play a big part of the broadband future of the country, but it has to be handled a little differently. Wired networks can always have more capacity added, but wireless networks have the constraint of a finite amount of radio spectrum. A big part of regulators' work in enabling mobile broadband to blossom is in ensuring that spectrum is being used efficiently. This is part of the drive behind plans like the digital TV transition and the white spaces spectrum, which seek to wring more productivity out of the airwaves. But for more of these types of efforts to move forward, it's crucial to get a better handle on just how the entire spectrum is being used, so a couple of senators have introduced legislation that would have the FCC and NTIA undertake a "spectrum inventory" detailing the usage of spectrum between 300 MHz and 3.5 GHz. Hopefully this will make it clearer how much valuable spectrum is being mismanaged or hoarded, and open the door to some new licensing policies, like spectrum markets, or even just the opening of more spectrum to unlicensed use to take advantage of new technologies.

One of the better decisions to come out of the FCC during Kevin Martin's reign was the decision to free up the "white spaces" spectrum that lies in between TV broadcasts for other uses. The white spaces are unused spectrum that sit in between TV broadcasters' signals. They were important in analog broadcasts to keep stations' signals from interfering with each other, but they are less crucial in digital broadcasts (like the ones the US will eventually switch to). White spaces proponents say that they can effectively be reused by unlicensed devices that can seek out empty spectrum and use it to communicate, without interfering with licensed broadcasts, and the FCC concurred -- and, of course, made that a key part of its approval of the technologies. But as ever, the National Association of Broadcasters disagrees, and has sued to block usage of the white spaces, arguing it will interfere with their members' broadcasts.

We might be more sympathetic to the NAB's claim if it didn't have such a long and glorious history of trying to stifle anything that competes with incumbent broadcasters, and have such an annoying way of doing it. The FCC has put significant stipulations in place to ensure that white space devices don't cause interference, and despite the NAB's contention, the prototypes that failed in the testing process didn't do so. The FCC got it right by approving use of the white spaces with the restrictions and rules it put in place to tame interference; the NAB has once again got it wrong by trying to stifle innovation, and perhaps competition.