back to article Biden wants to claw back, flog off 1.5GHz of spectrum

Wireless spectrum is a finite and tightly regulated resource and that makes it a hot commodity anytime one of the standards bodies opens another swath of it to auction. And that's just what America's National Telecommunications and Information Administration plans to do. The agency wants to identify and reclaim 1,500MHz of …

  1. Tron Silver badge

    Paws off FM radio.

    Your personal stereo is still your friend. Feed it a couple of AA batteries and it will work for ages, even when the power goes off.

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: Paws off FM radio.

      > Feed it a couple of AA batteries and it will work for ages

      Another pawn in the pocket of big (small) battery getting-serious-about-crystal-radios

      1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

        Re: Paws off FM radio.

        I still remember when I got my first crystal kit to work, in my grandmother's kitchen the day after Christmas, using the electronic breadboarding set I'd received the day before. Terrific.

    2. JimboSmith Silver badge

      Re: Paws off FM radio.

      I am a big fan of LW/MW/SW/FM and almost every radio in my house has all of them. The one that doesn’t is my comparatively expensive DAB which is gathering dust on a shelf. This is because the one commercial station I used to listen to on it, Guildford’s Eagle Radio, is now no longer broadcasting. It used to come in perfectly in Central London on DAB which was great. When that was replaced with some rubbish generic national radio station (Greatest Hits Radio?) I went back listening to the BBC on one of my analogue “world band” radios. Once went travelling in Europe and had a Sony SW100 (which is fabulous) for company, and at night I picked up Capital Gold and 5Live on Medium Wave in Eastern Europe.

      Talking of spectrum there is sadly no chance of Absolute Radio in France anymore as they’ve ditched their MW frequencies. The license to broadcast nationally on MW was renewed only last year. If they knew they weren’t going to use it they could have handed it in then and the frequencies readvertised. As a result of this Absolute had their license revoked by Ofcom and are facing a fine. https://www.ofcom.org.uk/manage-your-licence/radio-broadcast-licensing/cessation-of-absolute-radio-national-am-service

      No point in taking a DAB to the USA as they use a different system. Also what other uses are there for the broadcast FM spectrum other than FM radio?

      1. emfiliane

        Re: Paws off FM radio.

        Also what other uses are there for the broadcast FM spectrum other than FM radio?

        Literally almost everyone would like a bite of that. The bandwidth is low, the penetration is high, it's an ideal spectrum for a vast host of services. Right now it sits (in the US) right in between radar, radioastronomy, TV, and aircraft navigation and information systems. There are tons of other services that don't need a lot of bandwidth that would kill for a slice of the VHF spectrum.

  2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    How about grabbing some of the WiFi bands? They're just sitting there not being used monetized.

    1. Roland6 Silver badge

      Well if the US is anything like the UK, those mobile frequency licences were only for a limited time. Perhaps instead of rolling them over TPTB could put them out to public auction and then relicence on subscription which could then be increased year-on-year at say inflation+5%…

  3. martinusher Silver badge

    They're owned but are they used?

    My experience of the R/F spectrum (as a radio amateur) is a lot of it might be owned but much of it is unused because its unsuitable for modern data communications. I'm a bit skeptical about bandwidth use, anyway, since most of it seems to be eaten up pushing useless adverts and short form videos -- everything's about money and little is about actual communication.

    1. rcxb Silver badge

      Re: They're owned but are they used?

      everything's about money

      Welcome to capitalism.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    However, as anyone who's used Verizon's mmWave 5G network will know, it's not the greatest if you need to punch a signal through walls or dense foliage

    , cigarette papers , your wife's lacy things she keeps just for wedding anniversaries then decides she can't wear any more, Elon Musk's last shred of decency ...

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