Wireless carriers beg FCC for spectrum, blame smartphones

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Mobile carriers in the US have been telling the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for months that they’re in a bad way—450MHz of total spectrum just isn’t enough to keep up with consumer demand for wireless services. As the companies explained in various FCC filings over the summer, the current strain on their networks is caused by a veritable data tsunami that has swept the country in the last few years, and they want the government to make more spectrum available to solve the problem. The big driver of mobile data use has been smartphones.