U.S. policy has ’stifled’ broadband and wireless build out, said ...
U.S. policy has “stifled” broadband and wireless build out, said Thomas Hazlett, Manhattan Institute senior fellow and former FCC chief economist, at the WCA Conference Fri. The U.S. needs to allocate more spectrum if it wants a wireless market…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
on par with other countries’, he said. Much spectrum could be shifted from the analog TV band and elsewhere, he said: “It could be efficiently reallocated instead of dribbling out through rulemaking and 20-year transitions, micromanaged from Washington.” The FCC’s allowing spectrum to lie fallow is the real problem, said former NTIA Dir. Gregory Rohde. The FCC has no policy to push spectrum buyers to actually use that spectrum, he said. “We could allocate more, but we don’t ask about if it’s going to be used,” he said: “If a [spectrum buyer] refuses to use it, the FCC should give it to someone who will.” Hazlett agreed fallow spectrum is a problem, but he said he fears that an assertive FCC policy would increase govt. micromanagement. If more spectrum were allocated to begin with, the competitive market would prevent spectrum from lying fallow, he said.