Friday’s closed-door Capitol Hill staff meeting with industry representatives on...
Friday’s closed-door Capitol Hill staff meeting with industry representatives on updating the Telecom Act will tackle a wide array of hot spectrum policy issues, based on preparatory questions e-mailed to invited participants by the House Commerce Committee. The meeting is…
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to start at 11 a.m. in Room 2123, Rayburn House Office Building. Committees refused Thursday to disclose which groups were invited to join House and Senate Commerce Committee and Communications Subcommittee staffers at the meeting. But Hill and industry officials said to expect another crowded meeting of 30-odd participants, albeit composed of different groups from the first two meetings. In the e-mail to invitees, the committee asked if the FCC could fully act on National Broadband Plan spectrum recommendations under its existing authority, and the relevance of differences between wireless and wireline/cable networks, and between terrestrial and satellite broadband services. The committee asked if there is a “spectrum crisis,” and if so how much and which spectrum is needed to address it. It asked how to balance the spectrum need by commercial providers with that of public safety operatives and national security agencies, and whether to promote unlicensed spectrum use and spectrum sharing as alternatives to licensed use. The committee asked how best to provide incentives to commercial and federal spectrum users to give up extra spectrum for commercial use, and if participants believed the FCC would get enough broadcasters “in the right places” to participate in incentive auctions proposed by the agency. And the committee asked how much government should manage auctions, including whether the FCC should impose caps or conditions on companies vying for spectrum.