So I saw in the Independent Financial Review (not online) that the NZ Government is handing out spectrum licenses to the radio industry for 20 years for $96m.
The pricing was based on estimated income for the radio stations based on a ‘cost per pair of ears’ approach.
As a radio station I’d be worried that those ears will be exposed to countless other stations broadcast through non-traditional means, while as a consumer I’m worried that the bandwidth could be put to much better use.
It’s astonishing to me that this length of time (20 years) is even contemplated, as the value of that spectrum is difficult to determine given the pace of technology change. Would we not be better off sometime in the next 20 years by using that undeniably valuable bandwidth for a more efficient method of data transmission?
Meanwhile I’m sure that technology will provide many alternatives to analogue radio. iPods and their ilk will increase in capacity so we can all have every song and program ever recorded (or thereabouts), while pervasive free internet (via any source) will mean that we can get streaming to any IP enabled device.
Lance Wiggs 
The twenty-year time period is very long indeed – it’s one reason for instance why we don’t have and probably won’t have a succesful WiMAX ISP in NZ.
Telecom, Walker Wireless/Woosh, BCL and Sky have sat on the 2.3GHz spectrum for 16 years now. It was originally destined for LMDS which was to be used for TV transmissions and more, but that technology never took off.
WiMAX in the 2.3GHz band on the other hand is a very attractive proposition as the frequency allows for good propagation characteristics yet carries a good amount of data.
The MED is presently looking at reconfiguring the 2.3GHz band to make it more suitable for WiMAX, but you have to ask yourself if there shouldn’t be a requirement that such limited resources would have to be put into use after a certain amount of time, or be forfeited.
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