> What did these companies do to deserve almost all of our spectrum They paid for that spectrum, and they fulfilled licensing commitments to built a network th

> What did these companies do to deserve almost all of our spectrum They paid for that spectrum, and they fulfilled licensing commitments to built a network that hundreds of millions of people can access and use. The FCC has special licensing terms and incentive programs for small businesses, non-profit organizations, and individuals. It actually is dead simple, and it’s cheap or free too. Their only ask is that is that the licensee serve the public interest and cover the population with services that they can actually use. This is the exact reason why mega corporations look like they’re preferred over the small players: the small players can’t fulfill that commitment. The EBS spectrum, which is now used so profitably by Sprint/T-Mobile, was given away for free to academic institutions. They initially intended for it to be used for academic television, but most of those channels ended up not being used, so they gave them free reign over what to do with it. Unburdened from restrictions on how to use the spectrum, and what did they do with that freedom? They leased it to Sprint for the sweet sweet cash payout. As far as I can tell, there isn’t a single academic institution using that precious midband spectrum for a mesh network. So again, the premise here is simple: all you have to do is build something that people use. If you can do that better than a mega corporation, and at low costs to the end users, you will almost certainly have the favor of the FCC. They’ll fucking give you spectrum for free. So just do it already.