I was recently at an event and after a presentation someone leaned over to me and asked, “what is spectrum? Is it a company I should know about?” At that moment, I saw four pairs of eyes turn my direction because they clearly had the same question.
My short answer to the group was No, spectrum is not a company you need to know about. (Well it might be, but not for purposes of this discussion.) I then went on to explain that spectrum, for purposes of wireless, is essentially the “radio” frequency that is used for wireless communications, whether it be television, radio, satellite GPS, mobile phones, and thousands of new devises a year.
That leads us to why it is important.
It is important for several reasons. First, it is limited. Because wireless spectrum is essentially the usable radio frequencies, it is limited by nature and by physics. We cannot artificially produce more, we can simply find the best and most efficient ways to use it. Second, demand for wireless everything is increasing. Meaning there are more people competing for the same limited resource. If we run the system in an inefficient manner we will not be able to provide the services people want and need, which could lead to frustration or worse.
With that primer, here is a video that explains the why it is important part much better than I can.
