If you own a smart phone, you probably take for granted the speed and bandwidth of your mobile device. But cell phone providers work hard to make sure that your phone sends and receives their messages properly and in a timely fashion. As more people enter the smart phone market, guaranteeing the quality of service that you are used to is going to become much more difficult.

If things keep progressing as they have been without change, the spectrum, which currently has a surplus of 225 MHz for 2011, will be running a deficit of 275 MHz by 2014. In an effort to combat this, some cell providers are looking to the broadcast space that exists between television stations. Normally, these blank stations will just show up as static fuzz on your television screen. But with this new effort, that space is slated to be used for cell phone reception. By using the space between stations, it is hoped that cell providers will be able to keep your smart phone working at the level that you desire.

In order to get the television space, cell providers such as ATT and Cricket Wireless will most likely be buying at auction the channels that are owned by television stations, yet remain unused. The FCC is attempting to lay down the groundwork that will make this exchange easier and more manageable.

By trying to increase the available spectrum size by 500 MHz over the next decade, cell providers are doing their best to anticipate and acknowledge their customers’ wants and needs. By broadening the spectrum that allows data to be interpreted by smart phones, these companies are hoping that their customers will continue to have a high level of service, even as the market becomes more and more glutted. The spectrum crunch, as this crisis has been labeled, appears that it will be solved, at least temporarily, by this proposed solution.