Jason Devitt: 700 mHZ spectrum helps consumers

March 20th, 2008, 8:00 am · Post a Comment · posted by Sonya Smith

Bidding closed Tuesday on a government auction of airwaves and SkyDeck CEO and co-founder Jason Devitt says consumers will be the main beneficiary of the new 700 mHz wireless spectrum.

Devitt got his start in mobile by co-founding Vindigo, one of the first companies to publish content and applications for mobile phones in the U.S. Devitt has talked about wanting greater customer freedom in the cell phone industry in the past on his personal and work blogs, and when he testified before Congress in July of last year. He says the 700 mHz auction is a step in that direction. Devitt typed this response to share his views on the significance of the 700 mHz auction:

“No matter who wins this auction, consumers will be able to use any wireless device they like on the new network, and run any application on that device, with a few perfectly reasonable restrictions. Previously, consumers had to choose from a handful of phones sold by their carrier. Even if it was theoretically possible to buy a phone somewhere else, most retailers were reluctant to stock them. This is not just about geeks who can afford $1,000 phones or who want to build a wireless refrigerator. The biggest beneficiaries will be consumers who don’t want a fancy new device at all, they just want to bring their old phone to a new network that offers a better deal.”

Devitt says it will take the airwaves winner several years to build out a network using the new spectrum. But, he is still excited that the bidding price for the spectrum went above the $4.6 billion threshold in January — setting in stone that the winner must keep the spectrum open to all devices.

The only downside Devitt found in the spectrum is that consumers may find it more difficult in the future to choose between devices, service plans and applications as more options will be available in the future. Addressing that problem, Devitt said, is a mission of his company, SkyDeck.

(Photo of Jason Devitt from Skydeck’s Web site)

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