A bipartisan group of House lawmakers plans to reintroduce legislation to require the FCC to pair for commercial auction the 1755-1780 MHz band with the 2155-2180 MHz band, Capitol Hill sources told us Wednesday. The forthcoming bill, which will be co-sponsored by Reps. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., and Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., will mirror the Efficient Use of Government Spectrum Act which failed to pass in the 112th Congress (CD April 12/12 p1). Pairing the 1755-1780 MHz band, which has long been a top target of carriers, with the 2155-2180 MHz band would allow the spectrum to be auctioned and licensed by February 2015. Spokesmen for Matsui and Guthrie did not comment. The bill provides the Department of Defense and other federal agencies a five-year window to leave the band and offers reimbursements for planning costs and the acquisition of replacement systems, Hill sources said. Defense is a large user of the band and the federal demand for spectrum is increasing due to the prevalence of advanced systems like drones. The cost of relocating Defense systems would be covered by the Spectrum Relocation Fund, which would be paid with the proceeds from the future commercial auction of the 1755-1780 MHz band, according to the bill. A March 2012 NTIA report estimated that repurposing all 95 MHz of the 1755-1850 MHz band would cost $18 billion and take 10 years to clear. NTIA had no comment. CTIA Vice President-Government Affairs Jot Carpenter said in an email statement the group “strongly supports efforts to reallocate the 1755 to 1780 megahertz band in time for it to be auctioned with the 2155 to 2180 megahertz band. Congresswoman Matsui has been a consistent advocate for the reallocation of the 1755 band and we greatly appreciate her continued leadership on this issue.”
The top Republicans and Democrats of the House Commerce Committee plan to convene monthly meetings with spectrum officials from the FCC, NTIA and DOD to encourage the agencies to quickly target federal spectrum that can be reallocated or shared for commercial wireless use. House Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., said Thursday that he and Ranking Member Henry Waxman, D-Calif., are “both concerned we are not making progress fast enough,” during a subcommittee hearing with public and private sector spectrum stakeholders.
The Obama administration is committing $100 million to spectrum sharing and pushing cooperation between federal agencies and industry, almost a year after the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology (PCAST) recommended the White House shift its focus from exclusive-use spectrum to sharing (CD July 23 p1). Until now, the White House had been generally supportive of sharing, but hadn’t released a presidential memorandum in reaction to the PCAST report. The White House also issued a paper making the argument that the administration is making progress on broadband deployment (http://1.usa.gov/11NlwJI).
Japanese-owned SoftBank should not be permitted to buy Sprint due to national security concerns, said former Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell during the first of two House cybersecurity hearings Tuesday. SoftBank’s $20.1 billion bid to buy 70 percent of Sprint Nextel has recently been criticized because of allegations that SoftBank uses equipment from Chinese telecom manufacturers Huawei and ZTE (CD May 21 p12). “If you are in the intelligence business ... the one thing you would love to do is run the telecommunications infrastructure in another country ... so having a foreign country own and control a communications company inside the United States ... I would not be in favor of,” said McConnell, who was in George W. Bush’s administration and is now the vice chairman at Booz Allen Hamilton.
Top minority members of the House Commerce Committee objected, in a letter sent to FCC commissioners Thursday, to a recent Republican letter urging the FCC to reject the Justice Department’s advice to implement spectrum aggregation rules or caps. Democrats said (http://1.usa.gov/16CnoJ1) the GOP letter is another example of Republicans seeking to “advance a one-sided re-interpretation of the goals and meaning” of the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act in an “attempt to spin the legislative history in a way that inaccurately reflects the intent of Congress in adopting these provisions.” Top Republican members of the House Commerce Committee had previously told FCC commissioners that the Justice filing wasn’t consistent with the Spectrum Act and could lead to a failed auction (CD April 23 p1).
U.S. broadband projects received a boost from federal stimulus programs, but that didn’t end ongoing needs that have new urgency with stimulus money disappearing, said federal and state officials at the Schools, Health and Libraries Broadband Coalition meeting Thursday in Washington. State leaders shared strategies and updates on how different efforts were progressing in their region. NTIA released a 68-page toolkit (http://1.usa.gov/YhGzCZ) of best practices, focused on its more than 200 Broadband Technology Opportunities Program stimulus grantees.
House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., said there is “plenty of blame to go around” but the current data on the program “doesn’t paint a picture of success,” in his opening remarks. He said the Lifeline fund grew 226 percent since 2008 and, in 2012, the FCC spent $2.2 billion on the program. “Specifically, it spent $2.2 billion of your money, my money -- virtually every American’s money -- since the Lifeline program and the entire Universal Service Fund is paid for through a charge on phone bills,” he said. “We are spending large sums of money and probably squandering much of it.”
House lawmakers are taking a close look this week at the FCC’s handling of the Universal Service Fund Lifeline Assistance Program, aimed at increasing Americans’ access to telecom service. On Thursday, Republicans on the House Communications Subcommittee said they plan to ask during a hearing at 10:30 a.m. in 2123 Rayburn tough questions about allegations of waste and fraud in the FCC Lifeline program. Meanwhile, a group of House Democrats, led by Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., introduced a bill Tuesday to change the Lifeline program and codify a provision that would permit eligible users to use subsidies to acquire wireless broadband services. House Communications Subcommittee Democrats also met with FCC staff members to discuss the status of the overall program.
House Commerce Committee members formed a bipartisan working group to consider rural telecom issues like call completion, spectrum, broadband access and broadband speed, said a news release Tuesday. The 18-member group will be led by Reps. Peter Welch, D-Vt., and Bob Latta, R-Ohio. The group will “serve as a forum to educate committee Members on rural issues to ensure that rural priorities are understood and addressed in the important work of this Committee,” Latta and Welch said in a joint statement. Other members are: John Barrow, D-Ga.; Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill.; Bruce Braley, D-Iowa; Lee Terry, R-Neb.; G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C.; Morgan Griffith, R-Va.; Lois Capps, D-Calif.; Billy Long, R-Mo.; Ben Lujan, D-N.M.; Cory Gardner, R-Colo.; Doris Matsui, D-Calif.; Renee Ellmers, R-N.C.; Jerry McNerney, D-Calif.; Brett Guthrie, R-Ky.; Paul Tonko, D-N.Y.; and Bill Cassidy, R-La. NTCA commended the working group’s focus on broadband deployment, rural call completion and spectrum allocation, in a news release. “These and other issues weigh heavily on the minds of rural consumers, and we appreciate the committee members’ willingness to devote more of their attention to seeking smart policy solutions,” said NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield.
Capitol Hill’s dormant net neutrality debate boiled over Wednesday afternoon as House lawmakers sparred ahead of the markup of a bill aimed at codifying the U.S. policy against “government control” of the Internet. Republicans on the House Communications Subcommittee argued that international governments are seeking to regulate the Web through a U.N. body and U.S. lawmakers must send a strong message that it’s committed to Internet freedom. But Democrats on the panel loudly objected to the bill’s use of the term “government control,” which they said was overly broad and could have unintended consequences on U.S. and foreign policy regarding the Web. Technology groups and public interest groups said they also opposed the “government control” language in the bill and urged lawmakers to reject or amend the provision in separate statements and blog posts.