Shortly before we closed yesterday, news came through that the US Federal Communications Commission had voted to adopt the new rules governing the allocation of publicly-owned airwaves for the next generation of wireless communications technology (see page four). The agency voted two-to-one to designate 160MHz of spectrum for new personal communications services licenses in two 30MHz, one 20MHz and four 10MHz blocks. Licence holders will be allowed to combine their blocks of spectrum up to a maximum of 40MHz. The Commission allocated an additional 40MHz of spectrum for unlicensed use and will divide it equally between voice and data applications. The meeting was continuing last night.
