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Does auctioning channels off to the highest bidder result in the best use of the spectrum?

• tptacek 10y ago
  http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/09/coase-and-spectrum-auctions.html http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/09/coa... Spectrum auctions are one of the more famous results of economics theory, and the first thing that people think of when they think of Ronald Coase (who won a Nobel and is up there in the pantheon of 20th century economists).
• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• baddox 10y ago
  Depends what "best" means and what you think about markets and regulations.
• upofadown 10y ago
  Not really. It tends to lead to a situation where in a particular area you can only use the spectrum that is owned by a service you subscribe to. So if you are on Big Bobs Phonz when it is busy (or you would just like more bandwidth) you can't pay to use Medium Sally's Wavz spectrum without a separate subscription. In rural areas things can get fairly weird, where every major company has to provide coverage (and redundant equipment) to ensure any sort of continuity of service. So the problems are non-optimal spectrum utilization and pointlessly redundant cell sites. You could extend the idea of municipal owned last mile broadband to wireless as it is more or less the same problem. But then there would be no point in having spectrum auctions. Governments have gotten used to the money they get for awarding spectrum monopolies so I don't see the municipal wireless idea going anywhere anytime soon.