The House Communications Subcommittee received 58 responses to...
The House Communications Subcommittee received 58 responses to its Communications Act update white paper asking about spectrum policy, it said Tuesday, posting all of the comments in large batches on its website (http://1.usa.gov/1duRyNw). Comments were due late last month. Commenters…
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included several stakeholders whose comments were already known, such as AT&T, CTIA, NCTA, NTCA, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon. Other commenters included Comptel, Microsoft, Motorola Mobility, Public Knowledge, Qualcomm, the Satellite Industry Association and the Utilities Telecom Council, who weighed in on myriad spectrum policy issues, from FCC structure and spectrum management to unlicensed spectrum to how the agency handles spectrum auctions. “The priority of the auction must be to ensure an adequately competitive environment for consumer wireless access nationwide,” Public Knowledge told Congress of spectrum auctions generally. “Any additional consideration of revenue, such as deficit reduction, has too attenuated an effect on the public interest to be taken into account. Auction revenue should be irrelevant.” Recommended approaches differed notably depending on the commenter. Congress “should consider using spectrum auction revenue to create an ‘efficiency endowment fund’ to cover agency costs to experiment with new technologies or systems that would enable them to relinquish Federal spectrum,” Mobile Future said. “Without such funding and targeted budgets for these initiatives, agencies have little incentive to incur the costs and risks associated with such system and process upgrades.”