Gadgetory

hi I'm Bridget Carey here with your cnet inside scoop and I'm chatting with Maggie Riordan she is senior writer and author of the ask Maggie column and you're busy explaining the drama that's going on right now with spectrum in the FCC basically verizon wants to make a deal with cable companies to do a little bit of exchanging of spectrum and people are kind of getting worried about whether the FCC will approve this or not so why are people getting so worked up about this business deal well Verizon basically has a lot of spectrum already and the big concern is you know are they going to get too much it's kind of like a big University or company going into a neighborhood and and they already own a lot of the real estate there and they're going to buy up a whole bunch more and the fears that they'll push out some of the little guys and put in a foot locker you know in a store or something so so that's the the fear and Verizon could very well do that but what Verizon and the cable company say is like look this is a private deal between two companies or between two entities here but people on the other side say wait a minute spectrum is a public good we all own this the public owns this and the FCC which is the agency that's there to determine who gets to use this public good they need to decide whether it's in the interest of the public to do this so so that's why people are getting so upset about it so what are the little guys saying about this I mean when you interview them what are their big concerns well this is a real david-and-goliath kind of challenge for them you know there's a lot of lobbying going on in Washington DC but you've got verizon which is is definitely bigger has a lot more money to spend you know I'd put AT&T in that same camp too and then you've got all these these little guys who just don't have the oomph they don't have the cash they don't have the lobbying gravitas right so they're all coming together you've even got t-mobile and Sprint that are joining their rural carrier Association to try to lobby against the bigger players wait well you know sprint and t-mobile I thought they're kind of big but even there joining up to sure that 18 teen verizon don't girl you've got AT&T and Verizon which control over seventy percent of the market so t-mobile and Sprint aren't that big well why should I really be concerned why should I cry if the little guy doesn't get all the spectrum that Verizon does it just I mean aren't I still benefiting from verizon being stronger and also having more choice with sprint and t-mobile and AT&T well today we have competition but the fear is what happens when we allow these companies to buy each other up or by each other spectrum and we get more and more consolidation and we see the bigger players forcing out these little guys so you really don't you don't want to get to a point where you don't have competition look at cable in a lot of places it's expensive because people don't have competition but when you've got a company like verizon who comes in and they offer fios or something like that then you start to see prices come down well it's interesting to see what decision they make Thank You Maggie thanks for watching Christina I'm Bridget Carey