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The market has been such an efficient form of allocating spectrum that WiFi et al. in the few blocks for public use push the vast majority of bits out there, wh
by stefan_ 2y ago
The market has been such an efficient form of allocating spectrum that WiFi et al. in the few blocks for public use push the vast majority of bits out there, while the other 70% of precious spectrum we sold to companies for exclusive use nickel and dime you on the gigabyte. Great fucking success story that is.
They even have the audacity to make up things like "WiFi calling" that push you to the public spectrum while still charging you. The market really figured that one trick out.
- EnigmaFlare 2y agoFor some bands, the opportunity for abuse is low because it's only allowed to be used at low power or for voice or other limitations that don't scale up much. But cellphone data has more demand than the spectrum can provide. If they didn't charge users, some people would try to hog all of it and ruin it for everyone. Same goes for broadcast radio transmission. Access has to be restricted somehow. If not by payment, then probably something that makes less efficient use of it like non-transferrable first-in-first-served or lottery.