The great sucking sound you hear is the sound of spectrum being sucked up by Apple’s new iPhone. The federal government has created a bottleneck on spectrum, sitting on approximately 85% of it while regulating severely the transfer of spectrum licenses between those holding spectrum but not using it and those with large customer bases while staring down the pending spectrum doom.

The FCC and the NTIA need to streamline the process for getting this resource into the hands of people who need it.

The Wall Street Journal reported back on 27 March 2012 that Sprint has plans to offer 4G phones on an LTE network. Given the time and energy the company wasted trying to block the AT&T/T-Mobile merger, it’s about time.

It’s good to see from a broadband adoption standpoint that Sprint is deploying a network that can help the company deploy these advanced mobile devices. If it can leverage a price strategy that gets the company more customers at a lower price to consumers, all the better. Lower prices charged to consumers keeps them connected.

CNET.com’s Kent German questioned in a recent blog post why Sprint’s move to sell the iPhone starting in mid October would not improve AT&T’s chances of getting its proposed acquisition of T-Mobile approved.

That’s because it is about the phones, the operating systems that drive them, and the apps that are developed for a app-hungry consumer. When the FCC talks about promoting a robust wireless ecosystem, they are also talking about the operating system and applications portion of wireless. T-Mobile, AT&T, Sprint, Verizon; all are just platforms for programs and maintenance plans. The U.S. must implement and grow its 4G environment in order to attract new and improved operating systems and apps.

T-Mobile has all but said that they are exiting the U.S. if this acquisition does not go through. The FCC can either grant the licenses now, or auction them off two years later when T-Mobile exits the U.S. market because Deutsche Telekom decided to cut off its allowance. That delay will only cost T-Mobile’s customers more money because they will have to buy services priced in a more spectrum constrained market.