Getting down to the wire(less)
Qualcomm's top executives have called for more wireless spectrum to be made available in order to keep up with current trends in wireless data traffic.
CNet reported that, speaking at the CTIA Fall 2009 conference, Qualcomm's founder and chairman, Irwin Jacobs, joined his son, current CEO, Paul Jacobs in calls for more spectrum and less stringent Net neutrality regulation, which they claimed could restrict operators' ability to manage their networks.
Qualcomm has always been a key player in terms of developing the wireless industry and the firm's technology is a vital part of most mobile phones.
The CTIA, a lobbying organisation for the wireless industry, has been nagging the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to allocate more spectrum for auction, for yonks, most recently in a request for an allocation for an additional 800 MHz of spectrum.
For its part, the FCC has said that finding more spectrum is the organisation's No. 1 priority.
Also speaking at the CTIA event, FCC chairman, Julius Genachowski, promised the agency would do all it could to find new spectrum to auction off, reallocate portions and promote more efficient use of spectrum.
According to Jacobs Jnr., engineers have reached their limits in attempts to wring any more efficiency from current bands of spectrum and wireless operators building next gen 4G networks will be forced to make those networks denser, with towers built closer together.
Wireless operators, said Jacobs Jnr., would also have to increase the capacity of their backhaul networks as a huge number of connections from mobile phone towers to the backbone just don't have the capacity it takes to manage the sheer amount of traffic.
Increased capacity aside, both Jacobs' also expressed concern about wireless operators' ability to manage their traffic flooded networks and muttered that Net neutrality rules could crush the development of new business models in the space.
The comments are particularly poignant because the FCC is currently in the process of drawing up its divisive Net neutrality principles for an open Internet. Unsurprisingly, phone companies, trying to protect their profits, are dead set against the idea.
