FCC Spectrum Task Force to Make Broadband Plan Sole Focus

The FCC’s new Spectrum Task Force has a focused goal, to implement and update the National Broadband Plan, Wireless Bureau Chief Ruth Milkman said in an interview Tuesday. The task force may also spin off new ideas in keeping with the plan, for example on additional spectrum bands that could be targeted for reallocation for wireless broadband, she said. The commission unveiled the task force Monday (CD April 27 p10). The new task force differs from the Spectrum Policy Task Force, set up under former Chairman Michael Powell in 2002 to “assist the Commission in identifying and evaluating changes in spectrum policy that will increase the public benefits derived from the use of the radio spectrum.” Its report is at http://xrl.us/bhji9u.

Milkman said the new task force won’t have public meetings or hold workshops, and has a different goal. “This spectrum task force is set up first and foremost to implement the spectrum chapter of the broadband plan,” she said. “I haven’t spent a lot of time looking back at the Spectrum Policy Task Force, but my sense is that that group was set up to do a report and did a report with a lot of ideas. In this case, this is a group of people that have in a sense already been working together on developing a plan for spectrum, which is the spectrum chapter of the National Broadband Plan. Now we're setting the formalized mechanism to make sure that everything gets implemented."

The focus of the new task force won’t be on spinning off new ideas, Milkman said. “First and foremost, we have a massive spectrum agenda and we need to get it done,” she said. “The National Broadband Plan also calls for continually evolving spectrum planning and the Spectrum Task Force will be the group that does that as well."

Milkman said the group will be purely an internal FCC group, but membership will include other FCC staff in addition to other bureau and office chiefs. She and Office of Engineering and Technology Chief Julius Knapp are chairing the task force. Meetings are expected on a monthly basis, with sub-groups meeting more often, she said.

"A lot of the issues cut across multiple bureaus and offices. ... For the WCS/SDARS proceeding the first stop is OET, the International Bureau and the Wireless Bureau,” Milkman said. “The D-block, while it’s a Wireless Bureau rulemaking, has considerable input from the Public Safety Bureau in the thinking process. Clearly, the UHF/VHF bands have implications for almost every spectrum bureau or office. There are broadcasters in those bands, but there are other entities in there as well.”