House Bill Would Speed Up Process for Clearing Spectrum
Three members of the House, including the chairman of the telecom subcommittee, introduced legislation (H.R. 3019) late Wednesday designed to speed up the transfer of spectrum from the government to commercial users. The bill is informed in part, industry sources said Thursday, by the difficulty T-Mobile and other buyers of AWS-1 spectrum have had clearing the spectrum so they can use it in their networks.
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The House bill was introduced by Reps. Jay Inslee, D- Wash.; Rick Boucher, D-Va., chairman of the subcommittee; and Fred Upton, R-Mich., a senior member of the committee. Inslee said in a written statement the bill was prompted by problems carriers have had clearing AWS-1 spectrum.
“While relocation practices and procedures worked well for 10 of the 12 agencies involved, unforeseen problems affecting some agencies took more than a year to resolve and threatened to undermine the spectrum relocation process,” Inslee said. “This bill is designed to improve the relocation process for all parties involved and address the problems that surfaced during the AWS relocation process.”
The Spectrum Relocation Improvement Act increases the “amount and quality” of information that would be available to potential bidders before the FCC auctions other bands now occupied by government users. It also “expedites the flow of auction proceeds” to the federal agencies that have to move to keep the relocation process on track. “I am convinced that more complete information about the affected federal agencies’ systems, their relocation cost estimates, and schedules reduces risks for potential bidders and ensures that commercial users’ bids in future spectrum auctions more fully reflect the market value of the spectrum at auction,” Inslee said.
“With the lessons learned from the AWS-1 auction, we believe this is a good time to review the process to see where improvements can be made,” CTIA President Steve Largent said in a written statement.