NTIA Dir. Nancy Victory said last week that the agency planned to...

American Wireless Industry Assn. at the CTIA Wireless 2003 show, Victory said NTIA would conduct a study of current and future use of federal land mobile spectrum in the Washington/Baltimore area. “Based on this use, NTIA will identify the technical improvements or changes via technology, spectrum management practices and/or standards to increase effectiveness of spectrum use and spectral efficiency,” Victory said: “If this approach works, NTIA’s efforts would be expanded to the remainder of the land mobile radio services and other radio services, as well.” She said NTIA also would assess whether certain market-based spectrum policies that had worked for private sector bands could be applied to the govt. to encourage efficient use. One question is whether secondary leasing options could be made available to govt. licensees to allow them to lease a portion of their spectrum in nonemergency situations and recover it in the event of an emergency, Victory said. A similar concept is raised in the FCC’s Spectrum Policy Task Force report on the possibility of public safety users’ being able to lease spectrum to other operators in nonemergency periods as long as a system was in place for that capacity to revert automatically to public safety when needed. Victory also stressed the importance of spectrum rights on interference protection, another hot topic of the Commission’s task force on the private sector. “Right now there is no standard formula or methodology for determining levels of acceptable interference,” Victory said. That often makes negotiating new sharing situations contentious, she said. “This year, NTIA plans to begin identifying the interference protection criteria for various radio services,” she said. If that works, NTIA would consider adopting the chosen interference protection criteria standards into its rules and regulations. “We would also encourage the FCC to adopt these new standards where applicable,” she said. Victory said NTIA hoped to investigate the idea of receiver standards. “To the extent that a receiver is more robust, it has the potential to reduce interference and increase sharing,” she said. “Here again, we will be considering inclusion of these standards in NTIA’s rules and regulations if doing so will mitigate interference, be practical and be cost effective,” she said.