US Shouldn't Embrace the 'New Coke' of Spectrum Policy: Simington
FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington laid down a marker in favor of exclusive-use licensing, in remarks to the Competitive Carriers Association. The speech came the week after a daylong NTIA forum on a national spectrum strategy, where the emphasis was on the importance of sharing (see 2209190061). Carriers hope the strategy, when it’s eventually released, will also lay out bands for licensed use (see 2209260048).
“Before we make the leap to a sharing-centric model in policy, we should remember that being too early can be even worse than being too late,” Simington said Wednesday in recorded remarks. “It doesn’t do us any good if we have the New Coke of spectrum policy,” he said: “The United States is a huge market, but it’s not the whole world, and we can’t afford to be an island in a sea of exclusive-use, full-power licenses. It doesn’t matter who I ask -- device manufacturers, tower equipment companies, network engineers, major telecoms -- everyone agrees that for 5G, we need the present licensing model.”
Most of the companies focused on 5G are global, Simington said. “I encourage and hope that Congress distinguishes this trend and the need for global harmonization as it considers FCC spectrum pipeline legislation,” he said. Whether it’s mid-band for 6G, high-band for high throughput or low-band for short-range applications like wireless charging and vehicular radar “we must work closely with standards bodies, trade associations, international regulators, and of course, industry, to make the right bands available for future technologies,” he said.
“There is a need to grow in the telco industry,” said Adolfo Hernandez, Amazon Web Services vice president-global telco unit, during a keynote at the Mobile World Congress in Las Vegas Thursday. “The traditional battles for consumers, the traditional battles for communications only, or communications mostly … have not yielded the growth that this industry needed,” he said. “The opportunity is really there,” he said.
Half of wireless providers see business customers as the main focus for growth, but only about a quarter of those customers plan to buy network solutions from carriers, Hernandez said. Many enterprises are instead looking for partnerships with a provider, he said. Telcos need to “change their culture, their organization, their processes, the way they’re looking at their [business-to-business] offerings, top down,” he said. “You also have to be aggressive,” he said.
Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman told the MWC she's a big fan of 5G but industry must address access and privacy concerns. “We’re trying so desperately hard here in Las Vegas to make sure that no matter the success or the failure of the family socioeconomically that they have the ability to learn how to use and have access to the same technology,” she said. “There’s a huge fear out there of invasions of our privacies and who can be assured that your privacy isn’t being invaded and how do we protect it,” she said: “That’s fear for our children and our grandchildren growing up.”
“Technology is constantly changing -- everything is connected, everything is mobile,” said Boingo CEO Mike Finley at MWC. “Las Vegas is a perfect example of how resorts, entertainment venues, transportation solutions, are pushing boundaries,” he said.
The MWC keynote session Thursday focused in part on 5G and mobile gaming. “To the extent that mobile wants to be entertainment, I think it would be … almost irresponsible not to fully lean into the next generation of creators, a lot of which are, frankly, tied to gaming culture,” said Zach Katz, president of video gaming company Faze Clan. “The sky is the limit right now for the creator economy” and “around mobile gaming, with publishers leaning in like they never have,” he said. Katz said he hopes to collaborate more with the wireless industry.
Companies all have a website and will soon have a “metasite,” predicted Alex Barkaloff, a founder of metaverse company XLA. The metaverse today is used in gaming, for shopping and social interaction, he said, noting XLA already supports 10,000 metaverses. XLA is building templates “so that millions can participate,” he said. About 100 million metaverse headsets are now in circulation, he said. “That’s very, very tiny and certainly that will grow when other companies like Apple and Bose” enter the market, he said.
The biggest networks are mobile, Barkaloff said. “Why can’t the metaverse be on mobile devices?” he asked: “Why can’t we have a metaverse in every pocket?”