Under Davidson, NTIA Would Likely Act on Spectrum Strategy

The Biden administration is committed to releasing a national spectrum strategy, a goal the Trump administration never met. NTIA didn’t have a permanent administrator for much of the Trump administration, as been true so far during the Biden administration. President Joe Biden is trying to change that by nominating Mozilla Foundation Senior Adviser Alan Davidson to head the agency. Biden's also filling out the FCC by renominating Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel and picking Georgetown Law Institute for Technology Law & Policy’s Gigi Sohn for the vacant Democratic commission seat (see 2110260076).

Top telecom-focused lawmakers cited the Biden administration’s long delay in nominating Davidson and lack of a permanent leader at the agency since May 2019 as a major reason the federal government lags in developing a spectrum strategy.

NTIA acting Administrator Evelyn Remaley told a recent conference the agency is working on a strategy, which appears to build on its work under Trump on smarter sharing using AI and looking at more spectrum for 5G in all frequency ranges (see 2110130066). Industry experts expect a growing focus on strategy if the Senate confirms Davidson. While not a spectrum expert, Davidson has worked at Google, Mozilla and the Commerce Department. NTIA didn’t comment Monday.

A permanent NTIA administrator will be “important” to the Biden administration's putting its imprint on spectrum policy generally and in shaping a national strategy, Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said in an interview. Committee Democrats are pressing for a hearing on Davidson, Rosenworcel and Sohn to happen Nov. 17, provided all three nominees submit their prehearing paperwork in time, lobbyists said. That’s about as late as the hearing can happen and it still be feasible for the Senate to confirm nominees before year's end, they said.

“Having these key [telecom] positions open for this long is a real problem” in moving past the spectrum policy infighting that happened during the Trump administration, Senate Communications Subcommittee ranking member John Thune, R-S.D., told us. Getting a permanent NTIA administrator “would make a difference” in the timeline for the airwaves strategy.

“Not having someone permanent at the helm” at NTIA “is not helpful,” said House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mike Doyle, D-Pa. It has been a “real frustration” for many lawmakers who focus on telecom policy, so “we need to get these appointments” in place as soon as possible. “I kid that [former Doyle legislative director] Phil Murphy is in charge there now” in his new role as NTIA senior policy adviser (see 2106070064), Doyle said.

“It’s important to have somebody permanent leading” NTIA to provide continuous leadership not only on spectrum policy but also other communications matters under the agency’s purview, said Congressional Spectrum Caucus co-Chair Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif. “I’m looking forward to a time when we can actually rely on someone being there” on more than an acting basis.

“Having fresh nominees for FCC and NTIA leadership brings great hope for more harmonious and productive spectrum policy coordination and collaboration than we have seen in a long time,” said Cooley’s Robert McDowell, a former FCC commissioner. “Historically, there has always been a tension between the FCC and NTIA. But Jessica, Alan and Gigi have known each other for years and have good practical working relationships,” he said: That “should help facilitate the work between the two agencies. The previous administration came close to rolling out a spectrum plan, but it never materialized. Career public servants can pick up the ball and offer the new political appointees a cornucopia of ideas rather quickly.”

Commissioner Brendan Carr said a timeline for making more spectrum available for 5G is more important than a strategy. “Sometimes you can put these national spectrum strategies together and it ends up being a lot of pabulum and not a lot of moving the ball forward,” Carr told reporters last week. “A spectrum strategy at this point could be a one- or two-page document” with plans for different bands, he said. “There’s a lot of very concrete steps that we could take in terms of providing predictability to the market,” he said: “That’s the most important near-thing we can do.”

6G

Nobody wants to talk about where more spectrum for 5G will come from, and instead they want to speculate about 6G, former Commissioner Mike O’Rielly told us. The Biden administration was expected to make changes to the strategy when it came in, but everything “seems to be just a carry on” of the last administration, he said.

“Tell me where the next 5G mid-band is coming from,” O’Rielly said. “Nobody can.” The administration has no plans beyond 2.5 GHz and lower 3 GHz, he said. Beyond that,t “it’s a bunch of really, tough bands that may be started to be thinking about, but they wouldn’t be cleared for four or five years,” he said: “That’s not a strategy. … People don’t want to do the immediate hard work right in front of them.”

“It’s important that any official strategy and the nominee understand the importance of getting more spectrum into best and highest use,” said Jessica Melugin, director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute Center for Technology & Innovation. “It’s critical that the point person for the executive branch be motivated to stop spectrum from lying fallow,” she said: “Technical aspects can all be learned and supplemented by staff, but understanding the value to society of freeing up more spectrum for consumers is either a priority or it isn’t. And it should be.”

NTIA and FCC need to “develop a functional spectrum strategy to keep up with the global wireless markets,” said Joel Thayer, president of the Digital Progress Institute. “There is no greenfield spectrum, and sharing arrangements might be the answer for the foreseeable future,” he said. “The U.S.’s success in the race to 5G and even 6G will rely heavily on the FCC and NTIA working together to allocate spectrum expeditiously.”

Davidson has the experience he needs to develop a strategy, a Wireless ISP Association spokesperson emailed. A strategy “is always good if it results in more meaningfully usable/shareable spectrum; and aligns policy outcomes to unleash competition by small, local Innovators, such as WISPs,” he said.

Jeffrey Westling, R Street Institute technology and innovation policy fellow, warned against too much focus on sharing. “Spectrum sharing is a key component to spectrum management, especially as bandwidth becomes increasingly congested, but exclusive licensing provides significant benefits such as certainty about the rights and flexibility regarding the operations,” he said: “With exclusive licensing, secondary market transactions become more viable because there is less concern that a new operator may cause harmful interference to the entities sharing the band.”