Inventory of Govt. Spectrum Likely Next Step from NTIA

Govt. officials questioned the viability of requiring agencies in some form to pay for the spectrum they use in their operations, during the 2-day meeting (CD March 3 p2). One economist said the public sector must view spectrum as a resource and pay for it the same way police departments pay for patrol cars. But sources say such a scenario appears unlikely, at least in the near future.

Dale Hatfield, former FCC Office of Engineering & Technology chief, who chaired last week’s conference, told us he sees consensus for federal audits of some kind and a mechanism for scoring spectrum consumption, with an eye on changing spectrum needs or new technologies that could make use more efficient.

“Going through that kind of regular review process, that seems to me to be a very good interim step,” Hatfield said: “Also, it was discussed, was there some other form of currency that would somehow reflect spectrum value?… For example, if it would be really cheap to use fiber and they put in a radio link instead, is there some way of putting some sort of shadow price on the spectrum?”

But Hatfield cautioned “we have to be very careful,” especially following the Sept. 11 attacks. “We have to take the concerns about getting access to spectrum for homeland security and national defense very seriously,” he said. “When I was here [at the FCC] it was very different. You didn’t think much about DoD doing things at home because we fought wars overseas. Now it’s not clear where we're fighting… We have to be very careful about putting too much pressure on DoD to give up spectrum but rather put pressure to make sure they're using what they've got efficiently.”

“It’s unrealistic to hold up these federal users to exactly the same standards that we would hold these commercial markets, first from just pure economics, but just from a Realpolitik perspective,” said William Lehr, prof. at the Mass. Institute of Technology: “I think it’s actually in their best interests, but I think it needs to be done intelligently.”

Lehr said that from his viewpoint as an economist and academic charging federal agencies for the spectrum they use may make sense in theory. “That may be the best of all worlds but I don’t want to stop the need for reform by waiting for that to happen,” he said: “We need to make progress where we can make progress.”

Lehr said other nations have completed a similar govt. spectrum inventory and spectrum and policymakers have found that useful. “In calling for an inventory we're saying we think there needs to be a lot more information about exactly what’s being done and what’s being shared,” he said.

Former NTIA Dir. Greg Rohde said Congress must assert itself more to require the NTIA to better monitor govt. spectrum use and the FCC commercial use. Rohde said focusing only on inefficient govt. use “is only looking at half the problem” with many carriers also not using spectrum with maximum efficiency. “There’s great value in Congress requiring the FCC and NTIA to continuously look at the efficiency of spectrum use,” he said. “We do have a lot of spectrum that’s not being utilized both on the government side as well as the commercial side.”

“A lot of the ideas presented were a little unrealistic given political considerations,” one industry source said Fri. “Would industry like to have access to more government spectrum? Sure. But we have to look for incremental progress.”

NTIA acting Dir. John Kneuer told us NTIA is taking a serious look at govt. spectrum use as directed by the President. “This is not an idle exercise,” he said: “We're here to make progress… Progress is going to come. It may come incrementally, but it’s going to get institutionalized… Everything that is in the initiative, all of the recommendations, we're clearly doing more.”