http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/ATT-Acknowledges-Theres-No-Spectrum-Crunch-121990

PANTS ON FIRE!

AT&T Admits That The Whole ‘Spectrum Crunch’ Argument It Made For Why It Needed T-Mobile Wasn’t True

from the well,-implicity dept — excerpt:

You may recall that back when AT&T was trying to buy T-Mobile, a big part of the argument was a spectrum crunch around its wireless efforts. The company insisted — strenuously — that it would not be able to expand 4G LTE services to more than 80% of the population unless it had T-Mobile. That argument ran into some trouble when a lawyer accidentally posted some documents to the FCC which admitted that the company could fairly easily expand its coverage to 97% of the population of the US without T-Mobile (and, in fact, that it would cost about 10% of what buying T-Mobile would cost). Suddenly, the argument that it absolutely needed T-Mobile rang hollow — even as the company continued to insist exactly that. Still, the FCC suddenly was skeptical and AT&T, seeing the writing on the wall, gave up on the merger…

http://www.techdirt.com/blog/wireless/articles/20121109/07434820984/att-admits-that-whole-spectrum-crunch-argument-it-made-why-it-needed-t-mobile-wasnt-true.shtml

geoff goodfellow

1Gbps/km2

communications architecture which is very affordable. We brought it live some months ago, to quite some press coverage. We essentially applied a “cost waterfilling” concept, where – instead of having an equal amount of capable and costly elements in the network – we have one which is really expensive and bulky but many elements which are very small and cheap.

I had keynoted recently at a Telefonica event, summarizing the drives and findings: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJtezd3CW98.

… Sanford Bernstein analyst Robin Bienenstock noted that a primary reason why US [cellular/mobile] networks are so pathetic is because the American government doesn’t regulate how carriers build their [cellular/mobile] networks as European nations do, providing the example of rules mandating a minimum number of base stations that, if not achieved, will result in the carriers losing their spectrum allocations.

“Let’s take California and Spain as an example, ??? Bienenstock wrote. “Telefonica has some 33,000 base stations in Spain (yes, miserable, economically imploding Spain). Conveniently, California is a similar size, has a similar topography, and has very similar population density. In California, AT&T has just over 6,000 base stations. The spectrum allocation per pop in these two operators (TEF in Spain and AT&T in California) is remarkably similar. A similar analysis looking at New Jersey and Massachusetts vs the Netherlands shows similar results.

“Why are European [cellular/mobile] networks so much denser than American networks? In large part the answer lies (again) in regulation. In Europe, the spectrum auctions of last decade came with ‘use it or lose it clauses’ that obliged operators to build a minimum of base stations or face sanctions from fines to loss of spectrum. The result is clear to any American visiting Europe… and more frustratingly obvious to any European visiting the States.???

http://dslprime.com/a-wireless-cloud/61-w/4466-us-wireless-75-fewer-basestations-than-comparable-europe

this manufactured “Spectrum Crisis??? and the bamboozlement/deception/hoodwinking/snookering by the cell tel carriers has been going on since “The Red Herring fast one??? PAC*TEL pulled off shortly after the original A & B band 20 MHz CMRS allocations were deployed in Los Angeles on the grounds that the coming Olympics to the area was gonna see one big cellular traffic jam of massive proportions…

PAC*TEL successfully faked out the FCC in to giving them an extra 5 MHz of Totally Unnecessary and Undeserved (and free!) CMRS 850 MHz spectrum (instead of just investing in and deploying additional [sectorized] cell sites)… the “manufactured” same lies and deceptions by the cell tel carriers have been “working well???/promulgated/promulgating ever since…

hopefully articles like this, can finally get The Facts/Truth out to educate/enlighten Our ignorant/manipulated/naive journalists, FCC decision makes, members of congress and other responsible parties and put an end was put to this shameful “Spectrum Crisis??? sham that’s been going on way way to long…

the base station vendors ought to love you/this message, what with Europe having around 5.5 times more base stations deployed in similar spectrum, topography and population densities than we do “here”.

geoff goodfellow