Data growth and new technology are lowering the spectrum.

You are out at the mall with your friends.  After hours of shopping and walking around, you guys stop at the food court to grab a seat and sip on a cold drink.  Your friend mentions a video he saw on the internet, some video of a father shooting his daughter's laptop computer with his Colt .45 pistol.  Your friends haven't seen the video, and you decide to pull out your wicked awesome smart phone to show it to them.  Your phone can't load the video.  Something is wrong.

It's called Spectrum Crunch.

What exactly is Spectrum Crunch?  Described in an article written in the tech section of CNN Money, the Spectrum Crunch is the lack of airwaves necessary to provide voice, text and Internet services to U.S. mobile phones. 

It blew my mind when I read that the invisible infrastructure over which all wireless transmissions travel, is a finite source.  You always imagine that wireless technology has unlimited capabilities, but that is not how it works.  We as Americans are taking up the necessary space required to have our mobile phones access their data plans.  How exactly are we doing this?

By looking up videos of ridiculous laptop shootings at the mall, Americans are increasing their network traffic.  New technology has contributed to this.  The iPhone uses 24 times as much spectrum as a standard cell phone, and the iPad uses 122 times as much, according to the Federal FCC.  The overload of data will have a negative effect on the economy as well as the wireless infrastructure.  Companies will have to up their prices when the demand for wireless networks becomes limited.

The wireless data growth leads to spectrum deficit

 

 

As far as taking care of the spectrum problem, I'm not sure there is much that can be done.  We could use less data, but let's be realistic, Americans love to surf the web, check email, and watch videos.  The data use won't come down, and we might have to reap the results.