In the 80’s the FCC designated a radio band for the use of cell-phones. It ruled that these short range transmitters sites were availble to the public, not the Big Corps. To get around this rule, the big corps recruted the public to buy cell transmitter sites & bought them from the public, promising big profits. Has anyone made a killing with this?
Zymurgist
I’m not sure what you’re talking about here.
It is true that cellular companies have run into zoning restrictions which have kept them from putting antennae where they’d like to, and in some cases they’ve made deals with folks (such as hiding a cell tower inside a church steeple or similar structure which the zoning laws do not prohibit) in order to satisfy the zoning commission and still provide service in that area. Is this what you’re thinking of?
The FCC auctioned areas off or you bought a chance to be in a ‘lottery’ or something.Only one transceiver per cell area. People ‘on the inside’ would tell you and me how we could get these areas all for ourselves and sell them to the big guys. Of course they charged a hefty fee for faxing you a copy of the FCC publications,available free at the library,or for a few bucks from the government.They made big bucks. Of course by the time the little guys found out about this the only areas left were in the middle of Alaska or some where there was a total of 3 people.
“…”-Marx
Oh, for $50 I’ll tell you how you can get in on the ground floor of some oil and gas leases.Once you get a ‘producer’ that the big oil companies some how over looked,they will pay you a fortune for it. Or if you’ll sign a contract I’ll buy one ,since I am ‘in the know’ of this complicated matter, and sell it to you for a small profit. I’d rather make a small profit on a lot of them that one big profit,that way we all make money.
mr. john has it mostly right, and beat me to the post. (Payback! Well done.) Carl is talking about the great frequency land grab of the 80’s. Here’s how it worked.
When the FCC saw that cellular was actually going to get built, they handed out frequencies in the 800MHz band to pretty much anyone who wanted them. The people who wanted them were baby bells, who all got frequencies covering their entire territories, and entrepreneurial cellular pioneers, who collectively wanted and got frequencies covering major cities, where it was economical to build. I don’t remember whether there was any restriction on big companies acquiring spectrum, but it’s not important. All the big and smart companies were way too big and smart to get involved with a silly niche product like mobile telephony. Who knew?
As the pioneers built out their systems, others wanted to get in on the act for highways, suburbs, and eventually rural areas. The FCC decided that the only fair way to allocate the spectrum was by lot. But they also wanted the territories actually built.
So here’s what they did. They set up a lottery system, followed all the rules (publication in the Federal Register, etc.), but didn’t make a big deal of it. They didn’t exactly buy ads on Monday Nite Football saying “Hey, free spectrum = free money, get yours,” if you know what I’m saying. So the lottery players fell into mostly three groups: Actual cell-phone companies, scamsters who collected money from poor souls to acquire free spectrum, and a few canny individuals who caught on to the deal. The cell-phone companies built their systems, many of the scamsters got their just comeuppance, and a few of the canny ones did, in fact, make some pretty good money if they happened to get lucky and win a lottery for a good territory. Later (IIRC early 90’s) the FCC added conditions to require that a spectrum winner actually have plans to build the areas he won. And thus ended one of the more fun things the government has done.
Livin’ on Tums, Vitamin E and Rogaine