Thune Eager for Legislation To Free Up Spectrum, Eyeing Multiple Strategies

CTIA President Meredith Baker will testify, as will FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, a big advocate of unlicensed spectrum use. CTIA repeatedly has sought more spectrum for carriers. The hearing is scheduled for 10 a.m. in 253 Russell. Thune said this will be the first in a series of hearings on these items. “The Senate has a real opportunity over the next several months to pass meaningful wireless broadband and spectrum reform legislation, and it is my hope that the Committee will use these hearings to inform our work in developing such a bill,” Thune is to say in his opening statement Wednesday.

Thune plans to identify areas of legislative action in that statement. He wants to focus on “how the federal government, which is the largest spectrum holder in the country, manages and utilizes its own airwaves”; on “identifying specific bands that can be opened up for private use, both licensed and unlicensed”; and “to examine ways to reduce the cost of deploying wireless broadband services.”

“The backbone of our national spectrum policy should remain licensed and exclusive use spectrum,” Baker plans to testify, committing the wireless industry to investing tens of billions of dollars in infrastructure and rolling out 4G LTE functionalities. “We also feel strongly that the military and government agencies need adequate spectrum to support mission critical services, and mobility is just as central to federal users’ future as it is to commercial subscribers. We believe working collaboratively we can find win-win solutions to allow more efficient use of all spectrum and help support important government spectrum initiatives.” She lauded multiple measures before the committee. “We are committed to working with Congress and the Administration to identify future bands to meet the new 350 MHz target,” Baker will say, referring to the amount of spectrum that the Brattle Group says will be necessary by the end of the decade. “We disagree that we should abandon the licensed spectrum model because it is too difficult to clear additional bands.”

“This’ll be kind of a landscape hearing tomorrow,” Thune said Tuesday, as he predicted weeks ago (see 1507130056). “We’ll get an assessment of where things are as we head into the incentive auction next year and see if there might be some other ways in which we can free up more spectrum.” He called it an “ongoing dialogue” and expects “input from stakeholders, from industry, from agencies of government that have some jurisdiction over this.”

“Realizing the promise of spectrum -- improved public safety and national defense, new services for citizens, profits for companies, and revenue for the government -- entails squeezing radio services ever more closely together and shifting as much spectrum management as is prudent from regulators to spectrum users and the marketplace,” Pierre de Vries, spectrum initiative co-director at the Silicon Flatirons Center, plans to testify. “This in turn requires new approaches to planning, issuing and enforcing spectrum rights.”

The FCC and NTIA “should move away from worst case interference analysis and use risk-informed interference assessment that considers not only the consequences but also the likelihood of harmful interference,” de Vries will say. The regulators should also offer more “clarity about interference rights and obligations” and “for cases where interference disputes cannot be resolved, parties should have the option of acting against each other directly in front of an FCC judge, and/or in a federal Court of Spectrum Claims,” he will say. Congress can be involved in all instances, he will note of his recommendations: “Action by Congress can unlock the potential of federal and non-federal spectrum and lay the groundwork for continued growth in all three stages of the spectrum lifecycle: planning new allocations, issuing operating rights, and resolving interference disputes.”

“The failure to utilize the LightSquared spectrum represents a costly regulatory failure,” Technology Policy Institute President Thomas Lenard plans to testify. “Interference disputes between LightSquared and users of adjacent spectrum are a complex issue, but ultimately the inability to resolve them stems from the absence of a flexibly licensed regime -- in essence, the lack of clearly defined quasi-property rights and the absence of a market mechanism for buying and selling those rights. This has made it difficult for the occupants of adjacent bands to strike a mutually beneficial deal that would have enhanced the value of the spectrum and benefited consumers.” Lenard plans to advocate for administrative, budgetary and market tools to free up more spectrum. Long-term wisdom would involve creation of a Government Spectrum Ownership Corporation, which “would take possession of all government-held spectrum, with the existing user agencies granted annual leases (that are perpetually renewable at the option of the agency) at annual rental rates that are determined by the GSOC, based on its estimates of the relevant opportunity costs,” he will say.

The Wireless Innovation Act (S-1618) and Wi-Fi Innovation Act (S-424) from Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., are “a constructive place to begin,” said Julius Genachowski, former FCC chairman now at the Carlyle Group, and Robert McDowell, former FCC commissioner now at Wiley Rein and adviser to investment bank Berenson & Co., in a joint op-ed in The Wall Street Journal. “Congress can create financial incentives -- such as allowing government agencies to share in auction proceeds -- to encourage agencies like the Pentagon or the Transportation Department to relinquish spectrum that they aren’t efficiently using,” they said. “But if the agencies balk, Congress should make them give it up. … Freeing up additional spectrum for unlicensed use would not directly produce revenue for the Treasury. But unlicensed spectrum has indirect economic benefits through investment, job creation and the launch and growth of U.S.-based companies, including businesses connecting home appliances and lifesaving devices to the Internet.” McDowell has donated to Rubio’s presidential campaign (see 1507210050).

Blair Levin of the Brookings Institution, another witness, believes there’s “now a consensus on vision (bandwidth abundance) and strategy (repurpose government spectrum) so my testimony focuses on the challenge of how best to instill market signals into government decision-making about the spectrum it currently uses,” he told us by email. The op-ed from McDowell and Genachowski “did a fine job of summarizing where the debate was in 2011, but I believe the Senate Committee has moved beyond the easy statements of aspirations and is ready to roll up their sleeves and discuss the trickier, but ultimately more important, mechanics of repurposing spectrum,” Levin added.

The Obama administration is “lagging” in spectrum efforts, Free State Foundation President Randolph May said in an op-ed for The Hill. “In 2010, when President [Barack] Obama established the 500 MHz goal, there were high hopes the federal government, with a seriousness of purpose, would take the steps necessary to identify underutilized spectrum bands and reallocate those frequencies for exclusive use by private sector operators,” May said. “Not nearly enough has been accomplished. Instead of focusing on reallocation, the Obama Administration has tilted towards promoting government-private sector sharing of frequencies. While sharing is feasible in some instances, it does not enable as much commercial utilization as reallocation. Nor does it provide the permanence and security that encourages investment in new facilities and innovation.”