Posted: 03/13/12
Many thanks to our friends at MMTC for their recent forum, “The Looming Spectrum Crunch: How We Can Prevent a Crisis for the Underserved (and Why Communities of Color Should Care).” For a recap of the discussion and to learn more about the immediate need to make more spectrum available for US wireless consumers, click here.
Posted: 03/12/12 by Mobile Future Team
March Madness just begun and as Mashable reported, an interesting mobile app may help college basketball fans keep track of all the action. Thuuz monitors sporting events in real-time and alerts users when games get interesting by rating the excitement of each game.
To learn more, click here.
Posted: 03/07/12
As reported by AllThingsD's Ina Fried, today during the unveiling of the newest iPad Apple CEO Tim Cook announced that last year there were 315 million iOS devices sold, there are currently 585,000 apps in the app store and on Monday Apple surpassed 25 billion downloads.
To learn more, click here.
Posted: 03/02/12 by Mobile Future Team
As GigaOm reported today, Asymco’s Horace Deiu predicts that tablets will outsell traditional PCs as early as Q3 of 2013. Also, earlier this week Business Insider reported that new data forecasts smartphone sales to be double that of PC sales this year and that there will be more than 1.5 billion units of smartphones sold per year by 2016.
To learn more, click here.
Tags: Consumer Awareness, Consumer Benefits, iPad , News, Smartphone, Tablets , Wireless Devices
Posted: 02/24/12 by Mobile Future Team
The final entry of CNN Money’s series on spectrum this week explores potential solutions to the spectrum crunch that is threatening mobile innovation and a high-quality wireless user experience.
The author came up with four fixes:
- Employing cell splitting techniques to reuse spectrum
- Utilizing existing spectrum more efficiently
- Relieving network congestion using Wi-Fi offloading and tiered service models
- Allocating more spectrum for mobile
Millions of Americans are embracing mobile broadband, as shown by the explosive consumer demand and more than 100% growth in data traffic over the past year. The mobile community has responded with continued investment and innovation, already employing many of the remedies mentioned in today’s article. Unfortunately, those steps won't be enough for long. Policymakers are working to reallocate more spectrum for mobile, but the spectrum clock is ticking and 300 million wireless consumers will be the ones possibly left in the lurch. We need to keep moving to ensure continued investment, innovation and vast consumer benefits in the mobile space.
To learn more, click here.
Posted: 02/23/12
As CNN Money continues its series looking at the spectrum crunch, today’s story highlights the incredible growth in mobile over the past year. According to Cisco, wireless data traffic rose 133% in 2011 alone. One thing is certain: American consumers are hungry for a high-quality, high-speed wireless experience.
A spectrum deficiency looms in the near future that could cripple this experience, but making more spectrum available for mobile quickly will help address this challenge. As today's CNN piece clearly shows, hundreds of millions of consumers are increasingly using mobile broadband. This rapidly growing demand is straining the networks of the mobile providers who will all need more spectrum in the near future.
For more information, click here.
Posted: 02/22/12 by Mobile Future Team
In Part 2 of CNN Money’s series on spectrum today, author David Goldman discusses the options for wireless providers as they navigate the dangers of a spectrum crunch. The piece says that without action, millions of wireless consumers could face limited access to the high-speed mobile Internet they demand.
According to Goldman, these options include acquiring new spectrum, building thousands of new cell sites throughout our nation, and consolidation. All three options would cost billions of dollars to implement.
A combination of them may provide the answer to solving the spectrum crunch, but one thing is clear: all wireless providers need more spectrum to continue meeting the explosive growth in demand from more than 300 million American mobile consumers. With a potential spectrum deficit as early as 2013 according to the FCC, the time to act is now and everyone must be part of the solution.
To learn more, click here.
Posted: 02/21/12 by Mobile Future Team
This week CNN Money is taking a close look at America’s looming spectrum crunch. The first article in the week-long series was released today and points to consumer’s insatiable demand for wireless services and technologies as a contributing factor to the growing spectrum deficit.
As David Goldman writes in the article:
“The spectrum crunch is not an inherently American problem, but its effects are magnified here, since the United States has an enormous population of connected users. This country serves more than twice as many customers per megahertz of spectrum as the next nearest spectrum-constrained nations, Japan and Mexico.
When spectrum runs short, service degrades sharply: calls get dropped and data speeds slow down.”
To learn more, click here.
Posted: 02/17/12 by Jonathan Spalter
Today, in the midst of extending a payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits for struggling Americans, lawmakers passed a historic piece of spectrum legislation authorizing the FCC to conduct voluntary incentive auctions, an initiative that will ultimately help spur private investment in mobile broadband infrastructure and create U.S. Jobs. Congress took an important first step toward reallocating more spectrum for mobile broadband to combat a looming capacity crunch exacerbated by exploding consumer demand. They could not have acted a moment too soon.
On the one hand, more than one-third of adults own a smartphone and for the first time in history there are more mobile subscriptions that people in the United States. Additionally, the number of adults who own a tablet or e-reader skyrocketed from 18% to 29% between mid-December and January. From mobile payments to smart grid technologies, digital education initiatives to mobile health applications, wireless is a powerful engine of economic growth and American innovation.
On the other hand, wireless data traffic is expected to grow 100 times faster than mobile voice traffic over the next ten years and an estimated 50 billion devices will be connected worldwide in the same amount of time. Wireless networks in North America are already running at 80% of capacity and the FCC predicts that we will have a spectrum deficiency by 2013.
The important action today on Capitol Hill to enact legislation aimed at repurposing spectrum for wireless rightly acknowledges the ever-increasing benefits of mobile broadband and it has the added advantage of generating revenue for American taxpayers. Mobile Future stands ready to assist the FCC as it begins its work to repurpose spectrum as quickly as possible, while ensuring that all 300 million U.S. wireless consumers have the opportunity to benefit from these additional spectrum resources and continued mobile innovation.
Posted: 02/13/12
Today, the Washington Post highlighted that President Obama’s federal budget for fiscal year 2013 is available to the public via mobile app. The Government Printing Office released the app this morning and provides users with important budget information such as the president’s budget message and spending overviews for federal agencies.
To learn more, click here.
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Tags: Consumer Awareness, Consumer Benefits, News, Spectrum, Wireless Innovation, Looming Spectrum Crisis