The Looming Wireless Capacity Shortage

Holman Jenkins, writing in the Wall Street Journal, suggests we may be headed for a mobile meltdown. This should concern you if you have an iPhone, Blackberry, or any sort of smart phone.
He begins by talking about net neutrality and he makes the point that net neutrality is quickly becoming a non-issue because of what is happening in the wireless world.
Let me give some background. The development of certain applications has changed the way we receive the Internet. Jenkins points out that it was the development of Napster that drove the shift from dialup Internet service to wired broadband service. He now says that Apple's iPhone is now driving the explosive growth in wireless service.
This explosive growth may now create a problem. Holman Jenkins believes we are headed for a possible "shortage of wireless capacity to meet enthusiastic consumer demand." Consider just this one fact about wireless service. "A single YouTube viewing consumes nearly 100 times as much cellular bandwidth as a voice call."
OK, now put this one fact with this one statistic. In Asia, some 200 million people already watch video on their smartphones. Add to that everyone in North America, and you can see why we could have a mobile meltdown.
So what is being done to prevent a meltdown? First, the FCC is talking about freeing up more of the broadcast spectrum in order to handle the load of mobile computing.
Second, we need to build more cell towers. The biggest obstacle here is what everyone calls NIMBY not in my backyard. Isn't interesting that the same people who complain about cell phone coverage are often the same people who don't want a cell tower near their house?
Freeing up spectrum and building more towers are two positive steps to prevent a mobile meltdown.