New Feature & Data Update

Over this past weekend I spent time coding and a new feature has arrived!

I’ve now added a basic spectrum chart for specific metro areas. For now, I’ve limited it to three areas – NYC (Manhattan), LA (LA County aka downtown) and Las Vegas (because its where I live). I’ve got a few other features I have to add before I can roll it out to more metro areas (specifically, what happens if a specific area is shared geographically by two companies). For now enjoy, I have to curate the data before adding a new metro area to the list and sometimes check bad data against the FCC’s online licensing system (which is a huge pain in the ass).

Also I’ve updated the data on the “By Bands” page as well (the “By Carrier” page is still a bit out of date, the next thing on my list is to write a global data update & cleanup tool). The data finally shows the result of AT&T’s spectrum transfer to T-Mobile. There are so many pending spectrum transfers going on right now I’m starting to lose track…

  • SpectrumCoAWS and Cox sell spectrum (AWS-1 20MHz, 700 Lower 12MHz) to Verizon
  • Verizon & Leap trade spectrum (Lower 700MHz 12MHz for some AWS-1 blocks)
  • Verizon to sell Lower 700MHz A & B blocks either already owned or soon to be acquired to the highest bidder in a private auction (most of the “B” blocks will go to AT&T, while the “A” blocks may go to regional carriers).
  • Verizon & T-Mobile to trade and sell spectrum in the AWS-1 band to allow T-Mobile to get faster LTE speeds in certain metro areas come 2013.

I’ve probably missed some but Its a lot to keep track of – its starting to remind me of the BCS and college football conference reshuffling. Plus there is the outstanding issue of Echostar’s (Dish Network) 40MHz of satellite they want to convert to terrestrial cellular. Why Charlie Ergan wants to start his own cellular carrier I don’t know, seems like more of a headache – I’d just sell the spectrum and take my 6-7 billion dollars in profit and retire.