The U.S. government approved yet-another auction of spectrum last week. (The picture is of bids in an Australian spectrum auction.)

But there's a problem.

The big hoarders of spectrum -- phone companies -- are choking on what they already have. Prices are going to be down.

The key word in the above paragraph is hoarders. The phone companies are acting in regards to spectrum just like teenagers grabbing free music from the Internets. They're barely using what they have.

Consider the MMDS spectrum space. This was originally sold for cable television back in the 1990s. Then it was inherited by Sprint and MCI, for broadband. Is it being used? Uh. no. Yet it's extremely close (just a little "south" in spectrum parlance) to the highly-popular 802.11B region.

What will it take for people to get the hint? You get more economic growth, more innovation, and more taxes, more of everything in the long run, when you deregulate the spectrum, when you allow anyone to use it subject to basic rules on non-interference which can easily be implemented through technology.

Instead, we're getting another auction.

Why?

Because the government is addicted to the short-term revenue it gets from selling spectrum. And the phone companies are addicted to hoarding it.

Meanwhile, growth slows.

It's not a coincidence. It's a policy.