Wireless operators are playing up fears that without comprehensive reassignment of wireless spectrum to their businesses, a massive data crunch will slow wireless networks to a crawl.

Policy Tracker covered the Telecoms Regulation Forum in London last week and found two very different stories coming from mobile operators.

Mark Falcon, head of economic regulation at UK mobile operator Three, told the Forum that he did not really believe predictions of exponential growth in demand for mobile data. Few others believe them either, he added.

Blades

Falcon’s comments were frank and very rare in an industry that typically sings from the same hymn book on spectrum matters. More typical were remarks from Telefonica Europe’s chief regulatory officer Nick Blades who claimed a wireless apocalypse was imminent without major reallocation of spectrum for the use of wireless phone companies. Blades dismissed views that small cell antennas and offloading more traffic to Wi-Fi would make enough of a difference.

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has been criticized by consultants for overestimating required future spectrum requirements for wireless operators. A growing consensus outside of the wireless industry suggests the risks for wireless data tsunamis are “overblown.”

While AT&T and Verizon Wireless lobby heavily for spectrum reallocation in the United States, they routinely tell shareholders they have more than enough capacity to handle traffic for the foreseeable future and are looking for new and creative (and profitable) applications they can add to their existing wireless networks.