Lies and the looming spectrum crisis
Dec 21, 2009 11:52 AM, By Mark Hyman
Sinclair Broadcast Group advocate Mark Hyman says anticompetitive behavior by the national wireless carriers is not new.
Manmade global warming became all the rage a few years ago and it led to absurd reactions. Lawmakers banned incandescent light bulbs, political enemies put aside differences and engaged in sofa-bound sloganeering to save the planet, and Congress created a global warming subcommittee poised to write legislation saving Earth from the onslaught of blast furnace-like temperatures.
The Nobel Committee even awarded its peace prize to the narrator of a really shoddy Power Point presentation that was later lampooned in “The Simpsons Movie.”
Public warnings of saving humanity from a calamitous global meltdown became as kitschy as “Where’s the beef?” “Bud-weis-er,” and “Whassup!”
Thanks to a whistleblower at Britain’s East Anglia University — the Mecca of global warming studies — the world now knows that manmade global warming is a total fake, a fraud, a complete hoax. Everyone trusted the “experts” behind manmade global warming hysteria when they announced there was a scientific consensus.
However, the release of thousands of e-mails between those who shared in the accolades of the Nobel Peace Prize has revealed the “experts” corrupted data, twisted findings, withheld documents in FOIA requests, and stonewalled on the facts in order to promote a political — and possibly business — agenda.
With this as the background, the public should be forewarned that the “looming spectrum crisis” is the new “manmade global warming.”
That’s right. Just as the threat of manmade global warming burst on the scene coincidentally as Al Gore was trying to find a way to supplement his retirement income, we have been informed that the country faces a “looming spectrum crisis” by industry giants attempting to handcuff competition.
As recently as September, the nation had been planning its wireless future completely ignorant that a crisis loomed. However, in an Oct. 7 speech to the wireless industry, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission warned of a “looming spectrum crisis.” The remarks of Julius Genachowski were the functional equivalent of firing a starter’s pistol.
The national wireless companies were well prepared. They began pumping out papers, studies and filings waving the “looming spectrum crisis” banner and warning they desperately need broadcasters’ spectrum in order to survive. Just barely. Broadcasters must be banished from the airwaves to save the republic, they argue.
Pronouncements of “near unanimous agreement that current spectrum allocations will be insufficient to meet the explosive demand” appear to have been ripped from “the science is settled” playbook of manmade global warming. The problem is that aside from the bumper sticker slogan campaign, no one has actually proved the claim that there is a “looming spectrum crisis.” It sounds great but, not even the wireless companies can dance to it.
Sure, there may be occasions when iVideo Cocktails— one of the more than 50,000 iPhone apps — bog down but, does this really portend a spectrum crisis? (For the non-iPhone enthusiasts: iVideo Cocktails is a bartender’s guide.)
More to the point, AT&T sued Verizon Wireless over an ad campaign pointing out that AT&T hasn’t bothered to upgrade most of its network from 2.5G to 3G. Really, do wireless carriers that have neglected to modernize their oh-so-last-year networks need even more spectrum?
We have been lectured before that the spectrum sky is falling. Nearly a decade ago, the national wireless carriers warned there was insufficient spectrum and they would be unable to launch 3G wireless services. In fact, there was and they did (although, as Verizon Wireless has pointed out, some national wireless carriers have yet to fully upgrade to 3G even now). No drastic action was taken and yet, that spectrum crisis was averted.
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