Spectrum Bridge, building an online, real-time market for chunks ...

startup, which will allow online trading of secondary rights to spectrum. Spectrum Bridge is capitalizing on an FCC order allowing licensees to break up spectrum holdings to offer smaller chunks on the secondary market, Rick Rotondo, vice president of marketing, told us. “Say I had a license for 10 MHz for the whole state of Florida for 10 years, I could offer you a lease over your neighborhood in Florida for 5 MHz for the next two months,” he said. The company found that many potential customers tried unlicensed spectrum only to find it didn’t meet their needs, he said. “A lot of people can’t get Wi-Fi to work for them,” Rotondo said. “They really need licensed spectrum, either because of the interference free characteristics or because it allows them to put out high power.” He cited Orlando-Sanford Airport, that Florida region’s number two airport, which needs licensed spectrum to make its communication system work. Rotondo said licensees using the secondary market enjoy an advantage in that the FCC counts secondary market deployment against license build out requirements. The FCC secondary market order opened 5.5 GHz of spectrum to potential sale, he said. “With the conclusion of the 700 MHz auction, there will be no more spectrum that is suitable for mobile broadband applications left for the FCC to auction,” said Richard Licursi, CEO of Spectrum Bridge and former CEO of MeshNetworks. “Yet government and industry studies have shown that 80-94 percent of licensed wireless spectrum goes unused.”