A group of some of the biggest names in tech have begun petitioning congress for more bandwidth. Apple, Samsung, RIM, and Nokia have teamed up to send a letter to Congress asking for more airwaves for smartphones and tablets. The letter said that “authorizing new spectrum is timely and relevant considering current debates over the upcoming “fiscal cliff.”
Despite the fact that the Federal Communications Commission is currently working towards creating a law to auction some TV stations’ airwaves, called spectrum, to cellular carriers, the companies that signed the letter argue that more auctions are needed. The companies are asking top Democrats and Republicans on the House and Senate technology committees to consider auctioning some of the spectrum that is being used by federal agencies. They wrote:
“Now is the time to ensure the incentive auctions are as robust and successful as possible at liberating spectrum. We should also turn our collective attention on ways to reap the economic benefits of underutilized federal spectrum assets.”
Other signatures included Intel, Qualcomm, Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, and Ericsson, which are all members of the High Tech Spectrum Coalition. The companies believe the new spectrum-efficient technologies won’t be enough to meet the growing demand for mobile data and Congress should “incentivize federal users to ‘become more efficient, to share with one another, to vacate, or to lease their spectrum.'”
Image Credit: What Mobile
