There are several competing technologies, none of which seems to really meet the FCC's specific distance and accuracy requirements at this point. The handset manufacturers have definitely got a challenge to meet the requirements, and the carriers have a challenge with the infrastructure. So we're still wrestling with this at the moment. Neither we nor anybody else has enough to do 3G in the European sense. If you look at Europe, the big carriers there have about 90 MHz.
Japan is about the same.
So I don't believe that the U.S. has enough spectrum. I'm not convinced that you need six huge carriers to get a good, competitive market going. But truthfully, there needs to be more spectrum available. I wouldn't argue that it should be free, but it should be certain. Don Tennant is Computerworld's assistant news editor.