As the Federal Communications Commission’s 600 MHz auction gets underway, I thought it would be a good time to review some of the basic laws of physics and how this spectrum can be used. For those of you who have not been paying attention (or, for those in the U.S., perhaps, who have been distracted by your collapsing NCAA basketball bracket), the 600 MHz broadcast incentive auction is the latest opportunity to acquire licensed spectrum in the U.S.
As the name suggests, this is a reverse auction where the broadcasters basically say what they would be willing to sell their spectrum for and the mobile operators/other interested parties bid for the same spectrum. The goal is to reallocate significant amounts of spectrum from broadcasters to mobile operators.
