FCC Chairman said in a speech on Friday that more spectrum needs to be made available for mobile broadband, warning that a failure to act now could put the US’ economic competitiveness at risk.
In the speech to the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Julius…
FCC Chairman said in a speech on Friday that more spectrum needs to be made available for mobile broadband, warning that a failure to act now could put the US’ economic competitiveness at risk.
In the speech to the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Julius Genachowski said that while there had been a threefold increase in the amount of spectrum available for mobile broadband over the last few years, there is predicted to be a 35-times increase in mobile broadband traffic over the next five years.
He said: “If we don’t act, we’ll put our country’s economic competitiveness at risk. Make no mistake: we are in a global race for world leadership in mobile.”
He said that it was time to take steps to ensure that spectrum would be “the great enabler of mobile innovation for the 21st century, not a chokepoint”.
His main policy proposal for freeing up more spectrum was voluntary incentive auctions.
These would involve current licensees (for instance TV broadcasters) to make spectrum available on a voluntary basis. These frequencies would then be auctioned by the FCC, with a portion of the funds raised going to the previous licensee who made the spectrum available.
Genachowski said he had been working to remove technical obstacles to these auctions. This will require legislation to be passed by Congress.
He said that the Consumer Electronics Association, the Information Technology Industry Council and the Telecommunications Industry Association had written a joint-letter to Congress, asking it “to swiftly pass legislation allowing the FCC to conduct voluntary incentive auctions”.
“The time is right for speedy action,” Genachowski said.
