Spectrum trading - the ability for licence holders to sell on, or sub let, their frequencies - has been broadly endorsed by both the FCC and Ofcom, so now a US company has done the obvious thing and set up a market for the buying and selling of radio frequencies.

SpecEx is launched today, with spectrum worth $250 million up for sale including everything from national two-way paging frequencies to point-to-point connections in specific locations. The site is being run by Spectrum Bridge Inc., which raised $2m in seed funding to put together the service to connect buyers with sellers.

They aren't the first to try either, as the Wall Street Journal reports. But previous efforts have failed to find enough buyers and sellers to sustain the market. This time around, spectrum use is less constricted, and with the FCC not planning any major sell-offs for a while yet, there's nowhere else for a prospective licensee to go.

The FCC will have to approve any exchange of spectrum, or even a sub-letting, but the service is a logical extension to the liberalisation of radio licensing, which has already seen some licensees buying spectrum with the avowed intention of reselling it at a profit.

Spectrum Bridge likes to draw similes with the property industry, which chimes with how our own Ofcom relates to spectrum, so they see SpecEx as an estate agent putting buyers in touch with sellers - though hopefully without the dodgy cologne and excessive use of superlatives.

Spectrum trading is inevitable, and there's clearly a need for a central repository, the only question is if SpecEx will be the company that makes a success of it, but the site is worth visiting if only to watch the mildly hypnotic display of available frequencies flashing by. ®

Related stories

• SpecEx celebrates $8m of trades (11 August 2009)
• Index wants to play Nasdaq with spectrum (14 May 2009)
• Spectrum Bridge solves the white space problem (7 October 2008)
• MOD spectrum under the spotlight (3 June 2008)
• Ofcom will probe UK mobile market - again (12 December 2007)
• Ofcom starts planning for the London Olympics (30 November 2007)
• Industry comment An action plan for Ofcom (25 April 2006)
• Hurrah for Ofcom's spectrum plans (6 July 2005)