The tech community wants to be proactive on this issue. We don’t want to wait until it’s a necroses and that’s the amount of spectrum used by mobile is exponential and broadcast spectrum it like pails and comparison. Now we can free up a tremendous amount of spectrum , if we have the authority to conduct voluntary incentive options. We can make a big dent in the coming spectrum crunch. We can create more time for innovators to develop more efficient technologies for spectrum use. It won’t be the last thing that we’ll need to do to make sure that we take care of our invisible infrastructure. We need to free up more government spectrum for mobile broadband, we need to find other ways we can realocate spectrum from older uses to newer uses, but everyone who has looked at this agrees that this is the best and biggest near term opportunity to free up a very significant amount of spectrum for our mobile innovators. giving up their spectrum for an incentive, obviously. Will this really help? It seems like and we anticipate that in about 3 years we’re going to start feeling as consumers and businesses the pinch of the spectrum crunch. Now the problem is if we wait until then it will be too late because it takes time to re-allocate and repurpose spectrum. So if we wait for 3 years and we see tremendous consumer frustration with dropped connections, slow service, yeah we’ll get a big reaction and we’ll be able to move the needle, but it will be 3 years too late. It will take another few years to make progress and meanwhile our company’s growth will slow, and our global competitors who are looking at mobile innovation, will leap frog ahead of us. And that’s why we have to move. You mentioned a solution, a measure called incentivised voluntary options? Yes, voluntary incentive options. And that’s companies that have broadcast spectrum We can predict the crisis that is coming. Because demand is going up and supply is staying flat. the consumers and small businesses that are creating jobs, that are helping drive our economy, and we know exactly what the biggest threat to their success is. And the threat is that the infrastructure that they rely on are airwaves spectrum is finite. Demand is going up, supply right now is flat. If we don’t increase the supply of spectrum we’re going to throttle the growth and the opportunity and the job creation we can get from mobile innovations.
You mentioned that the majority of spectrum infrastructure is invisible. What are some of the challenges of getting people to care about invisible infrastructure?
Well you know, it is the challenge and the other point is the one Ron mentioned a few minutes ago. have been created in the last three years on these mobile platforms and that’s just the beginning right?Right and we certainly don’t want to stifle that because the biggest letters that were under our seats and send them to our congressmen or woman. What can we in Silicon Valley since we are problem solvers and we do seem to think outside the box and create the future do to make sure that three years down the line were not in a crisis?Well, being engaged in these issues, helping educate the public about the tremendous opportunity that mobile innovation presents for economic growth and job creation.You mentioned jobs per app, it an interesting, an interesting measure.Yeah, well, you know, look at the, you know as Ron said in the panel three years ago, we didn’t have have an apps economy.Right.
Today, there are literally hundreds of thousands of apps on the iPhone platform, on the Android platform, on the Microsoft platform. Even if you assume only one job per app, which I think is conservative, that’s hundreds of thousands of jobs thatexamples from entrepreneurs and innovators that are creating our economic future. They are creating new companies that are providing great services This is Alexia Tsotsis from TechCrunch and I am here with SCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and ST Angel founder Ron Conway and we’re talking about desperately seeking spectrum. Why have you brought everyone together here today? I mean what is the biggest problem with regards to spectrum, just is running out, and we need to figure out a solution before it’s too late?Well, the tech community, Wants to create awareness around this issue so that it doesn’t become a crisis and we have an FCC chairman. It’s very tech friendly, and comes to Silicon Valley often. And what we’re trying to do today is raise awareness around an issue that could be catastrophic if we don’t deal with it now.Yeah, what we saw here today were a whole series of spectrum already but this is the single buggiest lever we can pull to meet our national goal of recovering five hundred megahertz for mobile broadband the biggest crisis facing America today is job creation and the mobile app economy is gonna be a significant contributory.Do you have a rough estimate of how much sector we need to support the mobile industry moving forward? Well we’ll need more and more over time. The president has set a goal freeing out a total of 500 megahertz for mobile broadband by 2020. And that’s our estimate it’s the best estimate of what we need to do to keep pace with mobile innovation. 100 megahertz from broadcast spectrum would make a very
significant dent in that particularly given how high quality the spectrum is for mobile broadband use as said there’s also other avenues we need to peruse we’ve been able to recover several said that number to dramatize how fast the conversion is happening, which I think some people in Washington don’t realize.You know, other than some people that think that mobile is growing; everyone would agree to that. What they don’t understand and Silicon Valley understands it, mobile is exploding and we have to be prepared now and not at the point of the crisis. Did you say during the panel that Google, Facebook and Twitter three years in the line will have fifty percent of their users being on mobile?
Well, I don’t know the exact numbers, but I’m saying that it is extremely dramatic and I can’t speak for any of those companies, that’s a prediction that I’m making, you know, off the cuff, but the conversion from web apps to mobile apps is happening at a very, very rapid pace and I So we need to get this done it’s exactly the kind of strategic action country needs to take to make sure we can be competitive in the Global economy in the twenty first century. Yeah, there we want to draw awareness to this issue now and get congress’ approval now for the incentive auction. Right now what we need to ask and the tech community wants to support Julius in the FCC to accomplish it because we are.
What is the opposition to the option?Change is always hard. Any specific groups?Well, you know, the the NAB has said that they don’t see a big problem coming. They think to the extent that there is a problem, it will take care of itself. What we see here is that the people who are innovating around mobile, investing in mobile, know that is not the case. Now there are many broadcasters that support this initiative, both very small broadcasters and very large broadcasters.
