They don’t advertise for killers in the newspaper. That was my profession.
– Bladerunner

Wireless is Different, says Joan Marsh, AT&T Vice President of Federal Regulation, on AT&T’s corporate policy blog.

There is much misinformation out there about this issue, as well as a genuine lack of understanding about the limits technology and physics impose on wireless networks.

E-books, E-tablets and navigation devices) is expected to grow from approximately 6M in 2008 to 86M in 2014. It’s not surprising that mobile broadband data traffic is on a similar trajectory. The 90,000 terabytes of traffic per month that was carried on wireless networks in 2009 will mushroom to 3,600,000 TBs/month by 2014.

Wireless networks simply cannot provide the same amount of capacity as wireline networks (i.e., DSL and cable). Fiber is to a wireline network what spectrum is to a wireless network, and as a transmission medium, the two simply do not compare. The theoretical top speed of a LTE carrier is 100 Mbps. By contrast, theoretical transmission speeds on fiber can reach as high as 25,000,000 Mbps. The 5 extra zeros tell the story.

The story that AT&T doesn’t tell is their spectrum hoarding.

U.S. telcos paid over $15 billion for spectrum they are not using. AT&T is the worst offender, sitting on more than $10 billion in spectrum. The FCC seems to encourage this kind of speculation, and is doing the Telco’s bidding by opening more spectrum for corporations to sit on.

T-Mobile has activated their AWS spectrum for HSPA+ service, nationwide. AT&T and Verizon, in contrast, paid more than $4 billion for their AWS spectrum. Spectrum that remains untouched. Cable operators, under SpectrumCo, bought $2.4 billion in AWS spectrum from the government. It’s totally unused.

The 700 MHz band is not much better. AT&T paid $6.64B to the FCC for 700 MHz licenses and another $2.5B for 700 MHz spectrum, previously owned by Charles Townsend’s Aloha Partners. Paul Allen sold his 700 MHZ licenses in Washington and Oregon to AT&T for an undisclosed price, reports Bloomberg.

When you combine AT&T’s unused AWS and 700 MHz spectrum, you can clearly see that AT&T has taken more than $10 Billion in spectrum off the market. Creating artificial spectrum scarcity. Driving prices up. Just like Verizon.

Money talks. It can make a persuasive case for some legislators and regulators.

Mike Dano in Fierce Wireless created a chart (below) that breaks down the projected “4G” coverage of AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile in the US by the end of the year.

• Verizon Wireless: Verizon expects to cover 100 million people with LTE before 2010 is out but currently has zero. They hope to have blanket 4G coverage by the end of 2013.
• AT&T: Currently offers HSPA speeds of 3.6 Mbps down nationwide, but began upgrading software at its cellular towers this past January for a 7.2 Mbps rollout this year. Unfortunately the backhaul network is lagging. The majority of AT&T towers still use 4-6, T-1 lines, so all users must share the 6-9 Mbps available to the tower. AT&T says it will begin a 4G rollout with LTE in 2011, which should boost speeds to the 5-12 Mbps range. Widespread availability is not expected until 2014.
• Sprint: Sprint has partnered with Clearwire’s WiMAX (instead of LTE) to use 4G. It currently covers 43 million potential customers and aims to boost that number to 120 million before the end of 2010.
• T-Mobile: T-Mobile, the smallest major carrier, now has more than 75 million people covered by their HSPA+ network and all of T-Mobile’s coverage area — around 185 million — will see it by end of year.
• Clearwire: Clear offers WiMAX in some three dozen cities, and expects to cover 120 million people, including most major cities by year’s end. The company recently left open the slim possibility of transitioning to LTE from WiMAX technology at some point in the future.

Telcos aren’t in business to provide service. They’re in business to make money. Speed and coverage are coming. Affordable rates are not. Phoney scarcity is why.

Use it or loose it. That should be the law of the land.

Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and cable operators should let the market decide. Killing off competition through monopoly practices is not capitalism. It’s just criminal activity.

You’d think newspapers would be in the “net neutrality” fight to win it. They are not. They’re stupid and will die. Nonetheless, $3B in E-Paper subs are predicted by 2014.

Related Dailywireless articles include; Phoney Spectrum Scarcity, Smartest Guy in the Room, AT&T Buys 700MHz from Aloha, AT&T Data Caps Extend to Femtocells, AT&T’s New Data Plans, T-Mobile: Now HSPA+ Coverage for 75M, Public Safety: Show Us The Money, Clear: No Limits, FCC to Okay $2.3B AT&T Deal, Cellcos: One Thing – Bandwidth, T-Mobile Eyeing Clear Spectrum, FCC Considers Auctioning Off TV Frequencies, FCC Okays Terrestrial LTE for SkyTerra, Battle of the Bands Goes to Congress,

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Posted by Sam Churchill on Monday, August 16th, 2010 at 8:40 am.