NTIA Didn’t Probe Estimated Cost for Clearing 1755-1850 MHz Band, Gomez Says

"We only reported on what the agencies told us were the cost estimates,” Gomez said. “We didn’t do an independent review of those. Regardless … we can’t keep spending taxpayer dollars to move federal systems over and over and over again.”

Gomez said she sees few signs of growing industry concern about how quickly more spectrum will come online for wireless broadband, especially in light of the 1755-1850 MHz report. “I'm not sensing pessimism,” she told us. “I would challenge that there’s pessimism out there. What we are getting is a lot of interest in working with us and a lot more enthusiasm than you may be hearing. I'm pleasantly surprised with how much people are looking forward to working on this new process. We need to do this.” Gomez conceded she has heard some complaints. “I'm not going to be Pollyanna about it. [Industry] wanted us to give them 25 MHz of cleared spectrum,” she said. “I also understand that we have 20 federal agencies with very important missions that we also have to be concerned about. We can’t get to this place anymore where we're just going to find spectrum for them to relocate to. At some point it’s going to get squeezed to the point where we have to be able to share."

NTIA will likely “create a separate process” under the Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee to examine the future of the 1755-1850 MHz band, Gomez said. The group will also include representatives of the federal agencies, she said. “We have to have essentially a stakeholder convenor type thing where they all get to together and figure out how to make things work."

Gomez warned that NTIA may have to work right up to an Aug. 20 deadline to appoint a board to oversee the new FirstNet, the national public safety network in the 700 MHz band. Spectrum legislation enacted in late February gave NTIA a key role in appointing the governing board. “We still do want to meet that deadline,” Gomez said. She said it’s important that the board have maximum flexibility to run the new FirstNet. “The reason that Congress passed this law was in order to give a dedicated network for public safety that provided it the means to communicate in a manner that it has not been able to before,” she said. “Strong governance was an important goal of the statute. What that means is you need one single network architecture. You need one single network that will operate for all public safety throughout the country. Our fundamental concern is making sure that that’s what we end up with."

Also at the FCBA meeting, FCC Office of Engineering and Technology Chief Julius Knapp said the commission is close to wrapping up work on rules allowing people to access the Internet through the TV white spaces. “We have the first two devices that are authorized,” he said. “I expect there to be more. We're still open to locations that may want to come in and do tests similar to Wilmington, N.C., and Nottoway [Va.].” Testing the technology elsewhere “is not a necessary step” but “it certainly is welcome,” he said.

Asked about the outlook for widespread use of white spaces devices, Knapp said much remains unknown. “Like any new technology, it’s always hard to predict exactly how it will grow,” he said. “There seems to be growing enthusiasm here in the United States and around the world. Now that we've finalized the rules, people will understand how to go about building product and the potential applications.” Knapp was asked if use of the white spaces will largely replace Wi-Fi. “There’s a place for both,” he said. “Wi-Fi at 2.4 or 5.8 [GHz] has more bandwidth … But the benefit of the lower spectrum is that it does better going over distances. The data speed does not drop off like it does at the higher frequencies.” Early testing demonstrates that some applications like video over distances may work better in the white spaces spectrum, he said. Knapp said the FCC is close to developing procedures to protect from interference wireless mics licensed to use the 700 MHz.