Every time you make a cell phone call, send a text message, or visit a website on your smartphone, you are using the airwaves. Collectively known at the “electromagnetic spectrum,” airwaves are the lifeblood of mobile communications – but there are only so much of them to go around. Unfortunately, the government agency tasked with governing the airwaves, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), isn’t very good at managing them. As such, competition, prices, and service quality in the wireless market are suffering.

It gets worse. Over the next five years, wireless internet traffic is projected to increase 30 fold. Yet network capacity is only expected to grow by a factor of three. Unless lots of new spectrum is made available to mobile providers soon, innovation in the wireless space will likely face major roadblocks in coming years.