WASHINGTON-U.S. officials are close to delivering potentially far-reaching spectrum reports to President Bush, culminating a year-long review at a time when development of third-generation mobile-phone and wireless Internet services are being hindered by the kind of regulatory, legislative and bureaucratic obstacles the White House wants fixed.
“We believe we’re on schedule. There are drafts being finalized now of these reports,” said Clyde Ensslin, a spokesman for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. NTIA, an arm of the Commerce Department, advises the president on telecom policy and manages federal government spectrum.
Last June, Bush announced the spectrum-policy initiative and called for a task force to develop recommendations for:
c Improving spectrum management;
c Creating spectrum efficiency incentives and providing a higher degree of predictability and certainty in the spectrum-management process;
c Fashioning policy tools to streamline the deployment of new services and technologies;
c And addressing the spectrum needs of national security, homeland security, public safety, federal transportation infrastructure and science.
The existing legal and policy framework for spectrum management has not kept pace with the dramatic changes in technology and spectrum use,” said Bush at the time. “Under the existing framework, the government generally reviews every change in spectrum use, a process that is often slow and inflexible, and can discourage the introduction of new technology. Some spectrum users, including government agencies, maintain that the existing spectrum process is insufficiently responsive to the need to protect current critical uses.”
The president asked for two spectrum reports within one year-one with recommendations covering federal spectrum and the other addressing management of frequencies used by the private sector and state and local governments.
The administration’s spectrum reports are expected to form the basis for new legislation and regulatory changes. The House Government Reform Committee may initiate spectrum reform legislation on its own, depending on findings in five General Accounting Office investigations that are still in progress.
The high-level attention given spectrum policy first in the Clinton administration and now in the Bush administration reflects a newfound-some say a long overdue-appreciation of the limited resource’s value to the nation’s economy and national security.
It is a revelation painfully obvious to policy-makers forced in recent years to referee fights between the mobile-phone industry and Department of Defense over 3G spectrum; between Silicon Valley and the Pentagon over Wi-Fi spectrum; and between government and industry stakeholders over U.S. positions for global spectrum conferences.
The bottom line: universal acknowledgement that U.S. spectrum policy has ceased to keep pace with technological advances, market changes, globalization and, now, terrorism.
Whether the White House, Congress and the Federal Communications Commission-which are re-examining spectrum policy to varying degrees-can come up with a better model remains to be seen. It is a daunting challenge fraught with landmines of competing agendas in the public and private sectors. The U.S. is struggling to remain competitive on the world stage with European and Asian nations that tend to pursue industrial policy in the wireless space.
Meantime, the U.S. finds itself scrambling to unleash the economic potential of wireless technology. While substantial progress has been made in past years, major obstacles remain.
The mobile-phone industry’s uncertain journey to 3G is hampered by uncertainty over an additional 90 megahertz wireless carriers are supposed to receive from the Pentagon and non-government licensees. Legislation creating a fund to finance the relocation of military radio systems from 1700 MHz to other frequencies has been stalled for months on Capitol Hill, though lately there are signs of progress on that front. Unless the Pentagon is guaranteed adequate money and comparable spectrum to accomplish the move, the deal is off.
“NTIA has said this is their top legislative priority, the Department of Defense has been supportive and the industry’s goal remains unchanged: to work with the key players and have this on the president’s desk before this session of Congress ends,” said Travis Larson, a spokesman for the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association.
Spectrum problems are not about policy alone. There are personnel issues. The Senate has yet to confirm Michael Gallagher as NTIA director, limiting his role as an acting assistant secretary at Commerce. It remains unclear whether the Bush administration is prepared to make concessions to Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) to entice the former Senate majority leader to release his hold on the nomination.
The Department of Defense, which must implement any 3G relocation, is in a similar situation. Linton Wells II is temporarily filling in as acting assistant secretary of Defense for Networks and Information Integration-the long title for the Pentagon’s chief information officer-while the nomination of Francis Harvey to fill that slot on a permanent basis remains in Senate limbo.
The FCC, whose future makeup is left uncertain by Bush’s refusal to date to re-nominate Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein (D), has yet to figure out a plan to relocate 2100 MHz licensees directed to clear the band to make room for 3G services. As such, the Bush 3G plan remains a work in progress.
Adelstein plans to highlight the importance of wireless broadband this week when he hosts FCC Chairman Michael Powell and Commissioner Michael Copps on a trip to Adelstein’s home state of South Dakota.
“We are going to spend a lot of time talking about spectrum and wireless broadband,” Adelstein told reporters last Thursday at a regularly scheduled breakfast.
Adelstein said an event on Tuesday with rural wireless Internet service providers would show how some providers are using both licensed and unlicensed spectrum to provide broadband services to rural America. “We want to see this type of service replicated throughout South Dakota and the rest of the country,” he said.
The unlicensed-spectrum model shows the light regulatory touch the FCC has chosen for broadband, said Adelstein, noting it is a “framework for innovation.” RCR
Washington reporter Heather Forsgren Weaver contributed to this report.
