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Almost all phones nowadays come with a large range of frequency bands within which they can send and receive. Towers themselves are not the problem, AFAIK. The

Almost all phones nowadays come with a large range of frequency bands within which they can send and receive. Towers themselves are not the problem, AFAIK. The network infrastructure to the towers is problematic, though. If the infrastructure is available, you can put any antenna there. I'm not aware of California's electricity exchange. I didn't say Legere's proposal is bad. I'm all for it. But I'm still convinced that actually trading the right for spectrum at its current value makes a lot of sense. If your provider is too greedy to buy enough spectrum at an exchange (but it's okay to spend billions during an auction, I guess) then you can switch providers because, apparently, someone else is buying the spectrum at the exchange. Another positive side-effect would be that infrastructure and service could be split. It'd make a lot of sense for carriers to make all phones work on all frequencies in order to be flexible which frequencies to use. This in turn would allow consumers to have more flexibility with their carriers without changing phones.

cnst 12y ago
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=california+electricity+exchanges http://lmgtfy.com/?q=california+electricity+exchanges http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_electricity_crisis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_electricity_crisis (second hit) The article describes in perfect detail the shortcomings that are possible with all of these "exchanges" for finite resources. Also, I think you underestimate what it takes for a tower to support a given frequency. Filters, antennae and lots of other stuff is custom made to specific frequencies. I've been told over at the T-Mobile US reddit that supposedly each frequency requires its own antennae. Yes, your proposal would likely result in all phones supporting all frequencies (however, aren't you starting with the claim that it's already the case?). However, I think the shortcomings with the extra uncertainty, and the extra layer of having to deal with the exchanges and the extra real-time market analysis, will not help the consumers at all.
- QuantumRoar 12y ago
  The reason I told you that I didn't know about California's electricity crisis is that I didn't have too much time on my hands to figure out what you meant. I'm perfectly capable of figuring things out myself, if I want to :) No one would deny that there are issues with market manipulations and scamming at exchanges. That's why we have laws for exchanges and exchanges need to monitor the market for illegal activities. There were even one or two incidents in the history of exchanges (in this case stock exchanges) where things went so badly that a complete rollback to the state before those activities needed to happen. An exchange needs to ensure the legitimacy of trades and it also needs to ensure market liquidity. But that is an issue that's inherent to exchanges. You wouldn't want all exchanges to close down just because California had such a terrible experience, or would you? Yes, telecommunication equipment is very expensive, if you want to buy it for yourself. However, you also need to see the scale the equipment can handle. During its lifetime, a single antenna can serve millions of phone customers who all pay the telcos each month. In light of that scale, things are rather cheap. Just like a switch for 10GbE is way beyond the price what a normal person would buy for their home network, but a telco stacks them in their data centers because they can serve an awful lot of people with just a ten thousand dollar switch. However, I do agree that there is uncertainty involved and if something like that would ever happen, a lot of care must be taken. Once everything is set up correctly and legitimacy and liquidity are ensured, the spectrum could be utilized to its full extend. If I want to found a company that wants to create some kind of wireless technology, I can only use the ISM-band. Right now, there's no way I could use anything else if I'm not already one of the top-dogs of telecommunications. Further more, there is the issue that we actually have a lot of unused spectrum (apart from time square and the likes...). When a telco speaks of the need for spectrum, they talk about those highly crowded regions, but neglect to say that there is a lot of places where they just sit on their spectrum and don't use it to their full extend. In an exchange you could trade those frequency bands for various regions. If, however, a company owns a frequency band for all the USA, they can say: "See, I'm using it" although they only put it to use in the crowded regions.
  - cnst 12y ago
    So, you're basically coming from the perspective that these exchanges are meant to be useful specifically for the newcomers. But then this would never happen, since the whole industry is being lobbied by the bigger two to four players in the US. Also, are you suggesting that a newcomer would just have a tower or two in a remote region? I guess that may sound interesting, and they could do roaming with T-Mobile US elsewhere, and the whole concept might open up new roads for new services not currently possible, however, I think the required oversight would be overly burdensome, and smaller operators with their own towers, and roaming with T-Mobile elsewhere, already do exist within the current infrastructure -- take a look at Union Wireless from Mountain View, Wyoming, or Viaero Wireless from Nebraska/Kansas/Colorado. Also, I think Verizon Wireless is know to share their licences to some operators in exchange for buildout and mutual roaming agreements. Additionally, if you invest in equipment to support all of this, I'm pretty sure you'd rather be more certain that you'd be able to have the licence to the frequencies to support it; and not be subject to the overbids from the big players. However, it would certainly be interesting to know the perspective on all of this from operators like Union Wireless and Viaero.

cnst 12y ago

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=california+electricity+exchanges http://lmgtfy.com/?q=california+electricity+exchanges http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_electricity_crisis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_electricity_crisis (second hit) The article describes in perfect detail the shortcomings that are possible with all of these "exchanges" for finite resources. Also, I think you underestimate what it takes for a tower to support a given frequency. Filters, antennae and lots of other stuff is custom made to specific frequencies. I've been told over at the T-Mobile US reddit that supposedly each frequency requires its own antennae. Yes, your proposal would likely result in all phones supporting all frequencies (however, aren't you starting with the claim that it's already the case?). However, I think the shortcomings with the extra uncertainty, and the extra layer of having to deal with the exchanges and the extra real-time market analysis, will not help the consumers at all.

QuantumRoar 12y ago
The reason I told you that I didn't know about California's electricity crisis is that I didn't have too much time on my hands to figure out what you meant. I'm perfectly capable of figuring things out myself, if I want to :) No one would deny that there are issues with market manipulations and scamming at exchanges. That's why we have laws for exchanges and exchanges need to monitor the market for illegal activities. There were even one or two incidents in the history of exchanges (in this case stock exchanges) where things went so badly that a complete rollback to the state before those activities needed to happen. An exchange needs to ensure the legitimacy of trades and it also needs to ensure market liquidity. But that is an issue that's inherent to exchanges. You wouldn't want all exchanges to close down just because California had such a terrible experience, or would you? Yes, telecommunication equipment is very expensive, if you want to buy it for yourself. However, you also need to see the scale the equipment can handle. During its lifetime, a single antenna can serve millions of phone customers who all pay the telcos each month. In light of that scale, things are rather cheap. Just like a switch for 10GbE is way beyond the price what a normal person would buy for their home network, but a telco stacks them in their data centers because they can serve an awful lot of people with just a ten thousand dollar switch. However, I do agree that there is uncertainty involved and if something like that would ever happen, a lot of care must be taken. Once everything is set up correctly and legitimacy and liquidity are ensured, the spectrum could be utilized to its full extend. If I want to found a company that wants to create some kind of wireless technology, I can only use the ISM-band. Right now, there's no way I could use anything else if I'm not already one of the top-dogs of telecommunications. Further more, there is the issue that we actually have a lot of unused spectrum (apart from time square and the likes...). When a telco speaks of the need for spectrum, they talk about those highly crowded regions, but neglect to say that there is a lot of places where they just sit on their spectrum and don't use it to their full extend. In an exchange you could trade those frequency bands for various regions. If, however, a company owns a frequency band for all the USA, they can say: "See, I'm using it" although they only put it to use in the crowded regions.
- cnst 12y ago
  So, you're basically coming from the perspective that these exchanges are meant to be useful specifically for the newcomers. But then this would never happen, since the whole industry is being lobbied by the bigger two to four players in the US. Also, are you suggesting that a newcomer would just have a tower or two in a remote region? I guess that may sound interesting, and they could do roaming with T-Mobile US elsewhere, and the whole concept might open up new roads for new services not currently possible, however, I think the required oversight would be overly burdensome, and smaller operators with their own towers, and roaming with T-Mobile elsewhere, already do exist within the current infrastructure -- take a look at Union Wireless from Mountain View, Wyoming, or Viaero Wireless from Nebraska/Kansas/Colorado. Also, I think Verizon Wireless is know to share their licences to some operators in exchange for buildout and mutual roaming agreements. Additionally, if you invest in equipment to support all of this, I'm pretty sure you'd rather be more certain that you'd be able to have the licence to the frequencies to support it; and not be subject to the overbids from the big players. However, it would certainly be interesting to know the perspective on all of this from operators like Union Wireless and Viaero.