The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), the guys responsible for making sure that all the wireless radios, whether they be consumer mobile phones or encrypted military communication channels, actually work, has said that they’re going to begin investigating whether or not they can repurpose 95 MHz of spectrum in the 1755 to 1850 MHz bands for wireless operators to use. “NTIA is conducting this evaluation as directed by President Obama to reach his goal of nearly doubling the amount of commercial spectrum available over the next decade, an initiative that will spur investment, economic growth, and job creation while supporting the growing demand by consumers and businesses for wireless broadband services. We look forward to our continued work with the FCC and other federal agencies as we work to free up additional spectrum while protecting vital government spectrum uses.” — Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information and NTIA Administrator Lawrence E. Strickling
Last year these guys, together with the FCC, said that they plan on freeing up 500 MHz of spectrum by 2020. Just what is spectrum? Think of it like a pipe, albeit an invisible one. If you’re an operator and have a 5 MHz slice of spectrum, then you have a pipe that’s roughly 5 units wide. If you buy more spectrum during a government auction, say 20 MHz worth, then you now have a 25 unit wide pipe. Wider pipes mean more data transfer capabilities, something that’s going to be increasingly important as operators look to deploy and augment their 4G networks. When Clearwire showed off 90 Mbps download speeds over LTE, they were using a 20 unit (MHz) wide pipe for the downlink and a 20 unit (MHz) wide pipe for the uplink. And you wonder why Verizon can only give customers 10 Mbps with LTE, their pipes are half the size.
Cisco says that by 2015 the average download speed on smartphones should go up by a factor of four. Decisions from people like NTIA help make that happen.