CTIA Makes Case on Economic Benefits of Licensed Spectrum
The “economic value” of the 645.5 MHz of licensed spectrum in play in the U.S. is almost $500 billion, CTIA said in a report released Monday, written by the Brattle Group. Economists see the social benefits from licensed spectrum as running at least 10 to 20 times the spectrum's direct economic value, the report said.
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The FCC has only one major spectrum auction in the works, the TV incentive auction, “and nothing really in the pipeline after that,” said Tom Power, CTIA general counsel, on a call with reporters Monday. Power predicted significant activity from CTIA and others to “figure out what comes next.”
Power said the recently concluded AWS-3 auction was a success story. “A lot of naysayers” said the Department of Defense would never be willing to leave that spectrum, he said. “DOD came to the table. They really made it happen.” From time to time the data gets "stale" and CTIA felt it was time for an update, Power said. “We just wanted to inform the general discussion over next steps."
Spectrum, on its own, has no inherent value, the report said: “Rather, its value is derived from the economic and social value it enables as an input into the production of wireless services. Spectrum is a necessary input into wireless communication that, when combined with infrastructure, equipment and other resources, enables data transmission.” Some economic effects of spectrum are difficult to measure, the report said. “Mobile broadband is, and will continue to be, an essential catalyst for the U.S. economy, spurring economic growth and innovation in existing industries while motivating entirely new industries,” it said. “As the FCC has stated, ‘[s]pectrum is the nourishment for mobile broadband.’”
The tally includes 120 MHz of PCS, 50 MHz of cellular, 194 MHz of broadband radio service/educational broadband service, 90 MHz of AWS-1 and 70 MHz of 700 MHz spectrum. All of those bands were identified in the FCC’s 2010 National Broadband Plan, the report said. Another 98.5 MHz was set aside for licensed use subsequent to the plan.
CTIA has been active at the FCC, making the case that the agency needs to protect licensed users who buy 600 MHz spectrum in the incentive auction. In a Friday filing at the FCC, CTIA defended a report by V-Comm, which warned of major interference issues if the FCC allows white space devices and wireless mics to use the 600 MHz guard band or duplex gap following the auction (see 1503020024). “V-COMM’s interference path loss assumptions, out of band emissions (OOBE) calculations, and OOBE interference simulation mechanisms rely on industry standard practices and operating characteristics of real-world LTE devices,” CTIA said. “Thus, the calculations made by V-COMM are rigorous and V-COMM’s ultimate conclusions were grounded on sound engineering principles.”