House Lawmakers Want To Nail Down Specific Spectrum Bands for Legislation

“You see large areas from 1 GHz to 1.7 GHz where there’s very little activity,” responded Dennis Roberson, a former Motorola chief technology officer who’s now vice provost and computer science research professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology, showing a visual demonstration of spectrum. “You can see other bands, 2.7 to 3.0 in the middle of the chart … there’s a blank area there. As you go out, the 4 GHz, particularly the 4.2 to 4.4 I call out as areas where investigation would certainly yield.”

Walden asked Roberson about the spectrum activities in those bands. There’s “a variety of things in the 1 to 1.7,” satellite activities and some radar, Roberson said, saying 2.7 to 2.9 is primarily weather radar band and 4.2 to 4.4 encompasses radar altimeters for airplanes, “which you would normally not think of as an opportunity band” but is only used during takeoff and landing.

The House hearing took place at the same time as a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on wireless broadband deployment, part of a bigger look in the Senate at spectrum.

The two chambers have begun developing some “consensus around what some of these issues and some of the solutions are and you kind of heard that today, which I think is good, and hopefully that’ll shape a direction forward and legislation as we start working,” Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., told us Wednesday, despite what he said is no “set list that we’re all playing from” in bicameral coordination. “We’re talking with our House colleagues just generally about bands,” a GOP staffer for Thune said. “Obviously there are stakeholders who want some bands.” Thune told us Tuesday that he could see a spectrum legislation package coming together by year’s end, and Senate Communications Subcommittee ranking member Brian Schatz said specific bands are part of current legislative discussion (see 1510060050).

During Wednesday's House hearing, members asked witnesses what incentives may be required for reallocation of government spectrum and other steps they could be taking. They considered the Federal Spectrum Incentive Act (S-887/HR-1641) and the Spectrum Pipeline Act, a discussion draft that Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., introduced Wednesday. It was first circulated Monday (see 1510050055).

One aspect possibly “missing from the bills” is "the role that the spectrum relocation fund can play in promoting new research and development," said subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif. “It’s one of the most important undertakings regardless of what areas we’re in.” She wondered about removing restrictions from how the fund’s money can be used and whether agency flexibility should be increased on that front. All witnesses agreed with Eshoo. “There’s a need for funding for the researchers to then take the next steps and really understand the parameters,” Roberson told her.

“What is it you recommend to be done here to get better built, better engineered receivers?” Walden asked, saying he wouldn’t want to mandate standards. "Because this has been a longtime problem.” Roberson told Walden the industry should self-govern but there could be a mandate to ensure that happens.

Incentives dominated much of the discussion. Witnesses generally favored Congress moving to free up more spectrum through legislation, with many praising ideas in the Incentive Act.

“What bothers the agencies is they don’t know how to proceed,” said Jeff Reed, Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee member and founder of the research group Wireless@Virginia Tech. “Right now, I think it’s TBD on whether agencies have the right incentives right now,” said Phillip Berenbroick, government affairs counsel for Public Knowledge. “We would like to see more incentives.” Roberson dismissed the present climate and said the right incentives are “not there today.”

Rep. Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., questioned the figures in the Incentive Act, which he sponsored with Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif. The bill would allow federal agencies to recover one percent of the profits of spectrum they give up to auction, a number some saw as too low earlier this year (see 1504240061). “Do you think that’s adequate?” Guthrie asked. “Is one percent sufficient?”

Clarke asked about finding bands for reallocation. Reed emphasized the importance of “understanding how the new systems that would enter in that band would potentially interfere with the legacy users" and also "getting an understanding of the nature of what we call the propagation channel." It involves "looking at the susceptibility of those systems to interference, and this requires studies, upfront R&D, well beforehand," he said. "We need to get commercial entities talking very early with the Department of Defense.”

The answer may be “fact-specific to each individual agency” and “mission-specific,” Berenbroick told Guthrie. “You’re suggesting it would have to be flexible?” Guthrie asked, wondering whether NTIA or the Office of Management and Budget should handle how those incentives would be measured and doled out. “NTIA and OMB are the agencies that come to mind, but there could be somebody else,” Berenbroick considered, speculating that the FCC would want to be involved in any discussions.

Some members, including Eshoo and Commerce Committee ranking member Frank Pallone, D-N.J., focused on unlicensed spectrum. Pallone asked about the “Wi-Fi dividend” that FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel has invoked this year. “The rationale is that the traffic that comes over licensed networks, much of that will eventually be offloaded into unlicensed networks, so you need those two systems to work in concert,” Berenbroick said, noting he’s disappointed that unlicensed spectrum benefits are “not really considered by'" the Congressional Budget Office.