Spectrum Bill High Priority When Congress Returns
Spectrum audit legislation will be a high priority for the House and Senate Commerce Committees when Congress reconvenes next year, industry and Hill sources said. Work likely will start in the House Communications Subcommittee with markup of two bills that address the scope of a spectrum inventory (HR-3125), and strategy for relocating holders of federal agency spectrum, freeing it for commercial use (HR- 3019). The Senate Communications Subcommittee also has an audit bill (S-649). Negotiations are ongoing among congressional staff and the administration on a comprehensive approach, industry sources said. There’s strong bipartisan support for an inventory bill.
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Universal service legislation is another candidate for markup under House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va. He and Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., unveiled a draft bill (CD Nov 18 p6) they've been working on for several years that has attracted widespread industry support. While a markup is fairly certain, the next step isn’t, given the timing of the FCC broadband plan. Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., has not yet signaled his intent on USF but praised Boucher’s draft at the hearing, suggesting it be coordinated with the FCC National Broadband Plan recommendations.
Privacy legislation is another long-standing Boucher priority and one eagerly awaited by industry. He has spoken frequently about his goals for behavioral advertising standards among Web sites that collect transactional data. He wants opt-in regarding sharing of data with unaffiliated companies, meaning consumers would need to actively notify the site they wish to be contacted about promotions. Opt-out would be the preferred approach for use by sites consumers visit, marketing affiliates and ad networks that pool consumer data.
Spectrum legislation momentum will increase as the February deadline nears for the FCC to complete its broadband plan. “It makes sense for the spectrum bills to move forward along with the FCC broadband plan because they are so closely related in purpose,” said Washington Research Group analyst Paul Gallant. The bills provide an important tool for “getting visibility into government spectrum,” he said. “Without legislation, it’s hard to know what is being used and what is not,” particularly for government spectrum. “There is strong bipartisan consensus behind the need for spectrum audit legislation because of the obvious exploding demand for mobile broadband services,” said Precursor analyst Scott Cleland. “This is good government housekeeping legislation that can and should pass Congress.”
The House and Senate spectrum bills are similar, with the Senate proposing to inventory from 300 MHz to 3.5 GHz and the House 225 MHz to 10 GHz. The inventory would have to note the types of services allowed to operate, identity of users and extent of use in the bands. The agencies would be required to create a centralized portal to store the information which would be available to the public. HR-3125 would allow information to be kept confidential, but the data would still have to be reported to the FCC and NTIA.
HR-3125 is considered the more likely candidate for congressional action in the near term. HR-3019, which has bipartisan support, would establish a more orderly process for transitioning federal users off bands that would be reviewed by a three-member technical panel reporting to the FCC and NTIA. It outlines a procedure for treating classified information, and sets terms for getting support from the spectrum relocation fund, established in 2004.
Because the differences between the inventory bills are narrow, the main objective now is to draft a version that federal and military spectrum holders can accept. Lockheed Martin told a House subcommittee hearing on spectrum (CD Dec 16 p5) that release of classified data could signal an “inadvertent message” to the international community about the usage of federal spectrum. The Defense Department has “worked hard to promote … international spectrum harmonization to support allied interoperability of equipment, technologies and capabilities,” said Lockheed Chief Technology Officer Ray Johnson.