Startup proposes online spectrum exchange: Spectrum Bridge claims commitments from license holders worth $250M

It’s eBay for the wireless age.
Spectrum Bridge Inc. launched a new, first-of-its-kind online trading exchange for spectrum, saying it has commitments from license holders with wireless assets worth $250 million.
“Our online marketplace solves many problems people face when trying to buy, sell and lease spectrum on the secondary market,” said Richard Licursi, CEO and cofounder of Spectrum Bridge. “This market is seeing a huge increase in activity, now that there is less and less available directly from the FCC. Our initial listings valued at $250 million are just the tip of the $210 billion U.S. spectrum market iceberg.”
The company, based in Lake Mary, Fla., said its online system will bring together the highly fragmented market for wireless spectrum to solve technical, legal and marketing issues surrounding secondary market transactions.
“Until now, finding the right spectrum was a mixture of serendipity and finding a needle in a haystack,” said Stephen Marcus, managing director of Marcus Holdings. “Our customers need to build and expand networks, and this can’t be done without licensed spectrum. The bottleneck has always been finding appropriate and available spectrum for them. SBI’s marketplace now makes it much faster and easier for me to find underutilized bandwidth and get it in their hands. This is a real game changer.”
Spectrum Bridge said initial spectrum listings support a variety of wireless applications and services including cellphone, mobile broadband, two-way messaging, machine-to-machine, radio dispatch, video, telemetry, location-based services and automated meter reading.
All spectrum transactions still would have to be cleared with the Federal Communications Commission. Spectrum Bridge provides FCC filing support for buyers and sellers of frequencies on its system.