Michael Copps, former member of the Federal Communications Commission, believes there is a lot of spectrum laying fallow. Unused spectrum could put a dent in the shortage of airwave access facing wireless carriers.

Copps, according to an article in Broadcasting & Cable, said that he believes no one has any idea how much spectrum is actually out there not being put to use.

All the more reason for a complete spectrum inventory and why the FCC should focus more on what I believe a government agency’s primary task should be: managing access to our natural resources and making sure those resources are getting into the hands of those who are willing and able to put those resources to their most productive use.

I wonder how much spectrum is laying fallow in Atlanta?

Brian Chen wrote a piece on 17 April about the use of technology to increase the amount of spectrum access carriers can enjoy. He documents two sides to the spectrum debate.

One side advocates that technology can be used and is used to close any gap in the demand and supply of spectrum.

The other side advocates that deploying more smart antennas simply won’t do. Carriers will need permission to operate on more frequencies within blocks of electromagnetic waves if they are to meet the increasing consumer demand for smart phones, iPads, and apps.

Policy makers may be sending mixed signals (no pun intended) about where the priorities should be placed regarding how we carve and shell out more of the airwaves. In my opinion, the Federal Communications Commission appears to favor transferring the ability to access the airwaves from broadcasters and government agencies to wireless carriers. They don’t talk much about using technology to create more space on the access ramp to the electromagnetic highway or on the lanes within the highway itself.

While deploying antennas that mitigate interference between carriers and the bands they occupy may promote efficient use of the airways, deployment is a business judgment that should be left up to the carriers. Although wresting the monopolizing of blocks of frequencies from carriers and having carriers use technology that allows them to share the airwaves, in the end the utopia of maximized participation in the wireless market will give way to the winner being the company with the most capital, namely the large carriers.

If advocates for competition really want to see more players in the wireless market, the best bet is for the FCC to continue the policy of distributing bands of spectrum.

The House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology Sub-Committee on Technology and Innovation meets tomorrow to discuss the “flexible and innovative utilization of spectrum while ensuring the continued growth of the wireless economy.”

Richard Bennett, Senior Research Fellow at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation promised a lively debate in a blog post earlier today.

I expect at a minimum that Democrats will talk about ensuring competition in the wireless markets by making sure the big wireless carriers are not able to squeeze out smaller regional carriers from the spectrum pool.

Republicans should counter with the light touch regulation and letting the market decide where best to allocate resources including spectrum.

I would have to side with the Republicans should they offer up that argument. Regulators should focus on getting spectrum into the hands of carriers who aren’t going to sit on it and are willing to pay a premium for it. The type of mindset is focused on a return on investment which means getting service into the hands of customers.

A farmer wants the hogs to get bigger faster so she spends more money on feed. Consumers want more capacity to send data, texts, and voice messages, so to accommodate, wireless providers need more spectrum to meet consumer needs.

In his blog post, “More Price Hikes from a Spectrum Starved Industry”, Walter Piecyk notes the following:

“MetroPCS, for one, could have benefited from the likely spectrum sales that would have resulted from an approved AT&T/T-Mobile merger. Instead, MetroPCS and other wireless operators are likely to simply increase pricing on the limited, remaining capacity on their networks.”

In other words, if you foreclose on the hog farmer and take away access to alternative land for growing and feeding hogs, it’s going to cost the farmer more. If it costs the farmer more to feed hogs, it’s going to cost more to buy that holiday ham.

The Federal Communications Commission should have forecasted this. It was too focused on a simplified notion of competition; that more participants in the market took precedence over the price impacts stemming from reduced access to spectrum by the very carriers it allegedly was trying to protect.

Hopefully going forward as the FCC reviews other requests to transfer spectrum licenses, it includes in its decision matrix the impact scarcity has on consumers.

Mark Weinberg, a senior staff attorney with Public Knowledge, was recently mentioned in The New York Times for questioning why smartphone users are being charged for using more data. He says that carriers have not provided evidence that limiting data usage helps to relieve congestion.

Mr. Weinberg may be a fine lawyer but was not the best of economics students. Public Knowledge seems to have deleted from its knowledge banks the FCC’s own conclusion that wireless carriers are running up against a spectrum crunch. Simply put, the national resource is scarce, and we deal with scarcity in a market system by rationing consumption via the price mechanism.

In short, when you use something, you pay for it. Public Knowledge can’t have it both ways. You can’t advocate against a carrier acquiring another carrier so that it can increase spectrum and then crucify the carrier when it has to ration its primary resource.