NTIA Emphasizes Cooperation With FCC in Spectrum Repurposing Report
NTIA emphasized cooperation with the FCC on repurposing spectrum for commercial use in a Tuesday report part of work to implement President Donald Trump’s October memo directing development of a long-term U.S. national spectrum strategy (see 1810250018). The administration didn’t…
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meet the July 22 deadline for completing the strategy, after the abrupt departure this year of NTIA Administrator David Redl and infighting between the FCC and Commerce Department on spectrum policy (see 1907310033). NTIA acknowledged the July 22 strategy deadline. Trump’s memo “does not specifically call for repurposing of spectrum,” but “its implementation will help inform policy-makers’ decisions and add to the spectrum management and planning tools they can use in considering potential repurposing,” NTIA said. The agency said the U.S. has made about 5.9 GHz of spectrum “available in bands that can be licensed and used to advance” 5G technologies, and 7.25 GHz more “is under active consideration or study.” America has made an additional 14.7 GHz of unlicensed spectrum available in low-band and high-band frequencies, with an additional 1.2 GHz of spectrum being proposed for unlicensed use, NTIA said. It didn’t detail the kerfuffle between Commerce and the FCC over NASA and NOAA assertions that commercial use of the 24-GHz band could interfere with adjacent systems used by the two agencies (see 1906120076). That was a part of the spectrum policy fight (see 1907180044). NTIA said it’s “working with federal agency spectrum users to assess and study the potential impact to in-band and adjacent-band existing and planned operations to establish any reasonable protection limits necessary to avoid interrupting critical missions.” The agency and FCC “sought to make spectrum available in all” frequency ranges, “from the 512-698 MHz UHF Television Band to the 95-GHz band and beyond.” NTIA said it will continue for the rest of 2019 to work with federal and non-federal stakeholders, including transitioning to commercial use of the 1695-1710 MHz and 1755-1780 MHz AWS-3 bands. NTIA and the FCC will also continue to “build an infrastructure to support sharing” the 3.5 GHz citizens broadband radio service band and “continue to implement” spectrum repurposing provisions in the 2015 Spectrum Pipeline Act and 2018 Making Opportunities for Broadband Investment and Limiting Excessive and Needless Obstacles to Wireless (Mobile Now) Act statutes.