4 And other government agencies have been less than forthcoming about actual spectrum needs and usage. The Pentagon is hesitant to give up spectrum to protect mission critical capabilities, and has only recently agreed to relocate from the 1755-1780 MHz band after years of collaborative work with wireless companies seeking to use the band for commercial services. While the wireless industry prefers clearing, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology is pushing for spectrum sharing. Yet despite several deadlines, accountability is low and the chances for successfully getting more wireless spectrum are slim in the current environment. The Office of Science and Technology Policy put out a Request for Information this week regarding federal spectrum, asking for public input on how to structure these moves. The Memorandum directs NTIA, an arm of the Department of Commerce, to address federal spectrum needs and develop a plan for giving agencies incentive to share or relinquish spectrum, something that has been discussed but not implemented in the past. To combat this, the White House released a Presidential Memorandum last June 3 directing government agencies to move toward repurposing their spectrum for commercial use. 2 However, discussions to free up these resources for higher use in the commercial sector have largely stalled, as agencies are unwilling to disclose their actual spectrum needs or relinquish underused resources. Some estimates say the government controls almost two-thirds of this sought after spectrum. government holds the greatest amount of prime spectrum resources. Repurposing Government Spectrum is Key to Industry’s Ability to Provide Service Consumers Want and Demand The price of slow, heavily regulated action compromises critical wireless services for millions of American mobile users. This multi-prong approach is being embraced by industry, but policymakers need continuing pressure to do everything in their power to free up more spectrum for commercial mobile broadband. While reallocating underutilized government-controlled spectrum is the best way to get large swaths of spectrum for commercial mobile use, the broadcast incentive auction and numerous secondary market transactions are interim options for combatting a potential spectrum deficit. However, when this tension between the government as user and the government as regulator goes unresolved, the government becomes a bottleneck-keeping spectrum from its highest and best use. When the right balance is struck innovation, market forces, and consumer demand reveal the highest and best use of the spectrum: the government has access to the systems it needs to perform its critical missions, and consumers and economy enjoy the services and productivity gains enabled by new technologies. Resolving this tension between the government as allocator of spectrum rights and the government as spectrum consumer is the key to sound spectrum policy. And there is the rub: the government not only oversees the allocation of this resource, but also controls a majority of the spectrum for its owns uses. Without making additional spectrum available for commercial uses our communications economy and our global competitiveness will be at risk.īut spectrum is a scarce and finite public resource, and the only way for additional spectrum to be made available is through government action. With smartphones and tablets on the rise, data traffic is continually increasing to the point of congestion on our nation’s wireless networks. 1 However, the threat of overload is near as this exploding consumer demand has put a crunch on current spectrum holdings, and availability of new spectrum for mobile is low. And these devices are so popular and increasingly necessary that our country has more mobile phone subscriptions than people as of 2012. Spectrum connects us to the rest of the world via our mobile devices-the on ramp to the Internet in the palms of our hands, on the go, anytime. Harold Furchtgott-Roth, Is There a Spectrum Shortage?, FierceWireless, Mar.Tim Worstall, How To Solve The Spectrum Shortage: Sell It, Forbes, Jan.Brent Skorup, Reclaiming Federal Spectrum: Proposals and Recommendations, Mercatus Center (May 2013).The Failure of FCC Spectrum Auctions, Center for American Progress (2006):.To join this debate, please email us at Links: To this end, we offer links below to different perspectives on the issue, and we invite responses from our audience. The Federalist Society seeks to further discussion on spectrum and the relationship between government and technology. Any expressions of opinion are those of the authors. As always, the Federalist Society takes no position on particular legal or public policy initiatives. This article is a discussion about the allocation of spectrum.
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