NTIA's Harris Eyes 'Detailed' Spectrum Strategy, 'Robust' Public Discussion

NTIA intends to open a planned request for comment as part of its work to move forward on a national spectrum strategy (see 2209190061) “sooner rather than later,” but there’s no specific timeline, Senior Spectrum Adviser Scott Harris said Wednesday during a Georgetown University Center for Business and Public Policy event. House Communications Subcommittee Chief GOP Counsel Kate O’Connor, meanwhile, urged the Senate Commerce Committee to advance the House-passed Spectrum Innovation Act (HR-7624) and faulted the House Commerce Committee's recent oversight of interagency spectrum policy infighting.

NTIA’s planned “robust public discussion” will focus on asking “which bands [the public] prioritizes, for what purposes, and what bands it thinks may be promising candidates” for repurposing in the future, Harris said. The Biden administration wants to “create a pipeline that will take us out a decade” so “we don’t have to keep talking about the same thing every two years.” HR-7624 includes an extension of the FCC’s spectrum auction authority through March 31, 2024, instead of a longer-term renewal the FCC and others favor (see 2207260063). “We’re also working on an incumbent informing capability” intended “to enable dynamic spectrum sharing where that’s not now possible,” he said.

The “immediate goal is to create a detailed list of bands for intensive examination” for potential commercial wireless use, including specific information on incumbents’ use of those frequencies,” Harris said. “We need to know where each radar is; we need to know where it’s pointed; we need to know how powerful it is when it’s turned on; you need to know how often it’s turned on,” among other matters. “This is actually not easy to do,” he said: “This is hard. It takes time. And that’s why it’s a slow and difficult process” that “needs to be started right away.” NTIA will supplement the minimum 30-day RFC with public meetings so they’re not relying just on a “sterile paper file,” Harris said.

NTIA will “of course also … seek guidance from our colleagues all across the executive branch,” including about “their future needs,” Harris said. “It’s important to understand government use of spectrum is no more static than private sector use of spectrum. They also have” potential new technologies that will require retaining incumbent access to frequencies. Improved “coordination among government agencies” will be “a critical part of this process,” he said: “The only good news” about the public conflict earlier this year between wireless carriers rolling out commercial operations on the C band and the aviation industry over potential altimeter interference (see 2201180065) “is that staring into the abyss … is that no one ever wants to do that again.” There will be “no more surprises, no more misunderstandings, no decisions based on partial information,” Harris said.

O’Connor believes interagency spectrum coordination has “improved over the last couple of years,” including the recent update of the FCC-NTIA memorandum of understanding (see 2208020076), but she faulted House Communications for not being more involved in oversight of the situation. “We have not been doing our jobs as … an oversight committee,” which was a “dereliction of our duties,” she said: “In my view, we should have absolutely had those agencies up” before the House Commerce Committee “the second FAA started” raising its C-band concerns. The House Transportation Committee held a hearing in February on the item (see 2202030081). Stakeholders resolved the concerns behind the scenes, but “C band has been talked about for years, so the fact that the FAA came out with their concerns … after the auction had already taken place is pretty unacceptable,” O’Connor said.

“We need to pass” HR-7624, O’Connor said. “It doesn’t solve the problems on the federal agency side, but it does help with streamlining” a 3.1-3.45 GHz auction first authorized in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, along with the 18-month FCC authority extension. “It’s really important” that Congress renew the commission’s remit past the current Dec. 16 extension so the agency is able to complete awarding licenses from the recent 2.5 GHz auction, she said. Senate Commerce leaders are eyeing their own separate legislative package amid objections to HR-7624's approach (see 2209300058).

O’Connor cited House Commerce’s work with NTIA to “accommodate a lot of DOD’s concerns” with how HR-7624 retooled the 3.1-3.45 GHz auction process as an example of trying to address situations where there’s overlapping jurisdictional issues on telecom policy matters. DOD “may not have liked it on a policy level, but that’s not really their call,” she said: “There are some fights” between congressional committees and agencies “where there genuinely is a national security concern,” but there are also instances when “we truly do just have … different policy stances” and leadership will try to work out the disagreement.

Federated Wireless Vice President-Legal Advocacy Jennifer McCarthy is “concerned about policymakers looking at auction proceeds as the only measure of success of spectrum policy.” There are “a lot of other ways to measure that success,” including “auction participants, how quickly a band is put to use and deployed” and “the overall economic benefit to the economy as a whole,” she said: “I just would hate to have an addiction to auction proceeds dictating our spectrum policy and our licensing policies.” Policymakers “and Wall Street” need to “have that conversation, because when you mention spectrum proceeds, it cannot be ignored we’re in a period of rising rates and these balance sheets of the carriers are facing some pressure,” said Jennifer Fritzsche, Greenhill managing director-communications services and digital infrastructure.