Radio Spectrum

Two leading television executives urged station owners to continue to resist congressional proposals to make broadcasters pay for digital airwaves. Presidential hopeful and Sen. Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) has opposed as "corporate welfare" a provision in the recently enacted telecommunications reform bill that would allow TV station owners to acquire a portion of the broadcast spectrum for new digital TV channels for free.

Federal regulators plan today to embrace an idea long promoted by grass-roots computer enthusiasts: Set aside a chunk of the airwaves so that individuals, libraries and schools can use radio circuits free of charge to link their computers to the Internet, bypassing the telephone system. The idea is to foster the creation of community computer networks. People with properly equipped computers could trade e-mail or tap into databases over the air without paying a phone company for the privilege.

One paradox about the push to wire schools, libraries and other public agencies to the Internet is that budgets for all of these institutions are falling--indeed, the entire public sector is under attack. This paradox applies to poor people as well. Growing income inequality means that low-income people have greater difficulties affording or getting access to the technologies they need to learn in order to get better jobs.

Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) said Wednesday that he wants changes made to telecommunications reform legislation pending in Congress before he brings it up for a vote in the Senate. The Republican leader's objections mean the bill--which has languished in a House-Senate conference committee for months--will be delayed further. Shortly after making his comments in a speech, Dole adjourned the Senate until Jan. 22.

To paraphrase Karl Marx, there's a spectrum haunting American television--the frequency spectrum of HDTV. The clearer the high-definition television picture becomes, the more warped and distorted it appears. Unfortunately, smart HDTV policy and innovative HDTV technology are definitely not on the same wavelength. But even the godfather of communism would have been impressed by the grasping entitlement and shameless chutzpah of broadcast socialists dressed up in multimedia capitalist's clothing.

New Spectrum Allocated for Cordless Telephones: The Federal Communications Commission took steps to improve the quality of cordless phones and allow for continued expansion of their use, by unanimously approving a plan to designate new radio frequencies. Fifteen channels will be added to the 10 already allocated to the phones. The expansion will make interference with other radio signals less likely and improve the sound quality of the devices, FCC officials said.

AT&T Inc., Verizon Wireless and Google Inc. won clearance Monday to bid for airwaves in a U.S. government auction next week, a sale that aims to spur advances in mobile phones and may raise as much as $15 billion. Vulcan Spectrum Management Inc., the company backed by Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen, and MetroPCS Communications Inc. also are among the 214 qualified bidders, the Federal Communications Commission said. The auction pits AT&T and Verizon, the two biggest U.S.

Top bidders put up a total of almost $2.78 billion Thursday in the opening rounds of the Federal Communications Commission's auction of U.S. government-owned airwaves. The figure represents the highest bids received for five blocks of spectrum at the beginning of the auction, which is eventually expected to net the federal government at least $10 billion. Companies qualified to bid include major carriers AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless, as well as possible new competitors such as Google Inc.