Agencies Face Challenges Predicting Spectrum Needs; O'Rielly Says It Can Be Done

“It’s always difficult when no one has asked you to do it before,” FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly told us. “I have advocated multiple times” the administration needs to put a price on agencies' spectrum holdings, he said. “They’ve told me that’s really difficult,” he said. “We can work through those issues. I realize it’s going to be difficult but it’s so important to know what your demand is going to be.”

Agencies “can do this,” O’Rielly said. “It does require a little bit of effort, I recognize that, but it all can be done. I don’t think the administration is asking too much. … I don’t think it’s irrational.”

“Planning is good, but incentives are better,” emailed Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel. “Over the long term we need a better way of ensuring that federal authorities see gain -- and not just loss -- when their airwaves are reallocated for new commercial uses.”

A November NTIA memo asks agencies to report on their “anticipated future spectrum requirements over a 15-year period.” NTIA wants to promote transparency while keeping classified and proprietary details private. "A key element of the National Spectrum Strategy will be transparency of spectrum use and improved cooperation and collaboration between Federal and non-Federal spectrum stakeholders,” it said.

This follows an October directive by President Donald Trump (see 1810250058). Government officials said spectrum estimates are difficult to develop and industry has a tough time getting a handle on future needs. Agency reports are due April 23. NTIA didn't comment.

Agencies' Opening Bid

Michael Marcus, former FCC engineer and consultant, said agencies will likely use the document as an opening bid of sorts on their future spectrum needs. Marcus questioned how useful the exercise will be.

"Knowing as much detail as possible regarding the federal government's plans for its spectrum for the next 15 years could provide a gold mine of information and provide Congress, the FCC and NTIA with sufficient granularity to guide comprehensive spectrum policy making for years to come," said Robert McDowell of Cooley.

“Seems the least” agencies “can do given the broad agreement that the federal government holds too much spectrum,” said Joe Kane, R Street Institute tech policy fellow. “Making agencies put down on paper what they want is probably a necessary step to getting federal allocations under control. It probably is true that they don't currently have this kind of long-term spectrum planning capability in place, but this seems like a shortcoming that should be remedied, not a reason to not plan.”

Kane questioned how easy it will be for the administration to hold agencies accountable. “It seems unlikely that an agency would lose access to spectrum simply because it wasn't part of its 15-year plan,” he said: “There is also the potential for gamesmanship with this requirement since, absent a requirement to pay for their spectrum, agencies will be incentivized to overstate their projections lest they find themselves short on bandwidth in the future.”

Skepticism Aplenty

Some are skeptical. The government's challenge is to “stop thinking like government,” said Bartlett Cleland, American Legislative Exchange Council general counsel. Planning 15 years out “is a bit little of a fool’s errand,” he said. “I understand the need for longer-term planning if you’re the government, but asking for details of what are you going to do with your spectrum in 15 years is probably not the right approach” and is less helpful than asking agencies how they will do as much as they can with as little spectrum as possible, Bartlett said.

“It is unrealistic to expect any entity, private or public, to predict how it will use any new technology in five years, let alone 15,” said Larry Downes, public policy project director at the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy. “No one has the kind of tools to do that kind of long-range planning, because such tools don’t exist. That’s why we call them disruptive technologies."

It may be “an admirable and ambitious endeavor” to plot out a 15-year plan for spectrum needs, but such projections “will make interesting ‘time capsule’ reads even just a decade out,” emailed Francisco Montero, managing partner at Fletcher Heald. “Try to consider where we were in terms of spectrum usage in 2003. Could we have forecast the role of smartphones and social media in 2019?”

Fifteen years is a long timeframe, said Harold Feld, senior vice president at Public Knowledge. “Even fiscal budgets are usually done in 10,” he said. “I understand why folks want federal agencies to project that far out, so as to find spectrum that can be reallocated. But the problem is that it encourages agencies to be extremely conservative and vastly overestimate their potential need.” Feld said many agencies are looking to upgrade their two-way voice communications.

“There will be differences in degree regarding the agencies’ ability to predict accurately their future needs” so far out, said Randolph May, president of the Free State Foundation. “NTIA has in-house expertise to challenge the ‘future needs’ assessments if they appear unsupportably mushy. And I think it is probably implicit in NTIA’s notice that it wants the agencies to demonstrate future needs for lesser-included time intervals, such as five and 10 years.”

“With 5G now a reality and exponential growth in demand for spectrum and wireless services, policymakers should review all spectrum allocations to ensure efficient use and reallocate spectrum where possible,” said Steve Berry, president of the Competitive Carriers Association. “This should include the federal government, and asking federal agencies to provide information about current and future spectrum plans could provide a real opportunity to identify under- or unutilized spectrum that could be reallocated for commercial use.”