The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology’s report...

on mobile handsets and smartphones today,” said Richard Bennett, a Information Technology and Innovation Foundation fellow. “PCAST has offered an intriguing set of solutions to the problem of increasing the supply of civilian spectrum without disrupting military systems, but in doing so it has answered the wrong question,” Bennett said in a written statement Monday. “The urgent issue for spectrum policy makers is how to manage the ever-growing Federal appetite for spectrum without slowing economic growth and impairing the wireless services that consumers have embraced. While the PCAST report offers suggestions for better managing Federal spectrum, the question will need to be addressed in full elsewhere.” But Michael Calabrese, director of the New America Foundation’s Wireless Future Project, found more to like in the report. Calabrese said he participated in preparing the report as an invited expert. “We strongly endorse the PCAST recommendation that the administration move immediately to create a spectrum superhighway by opening 1,000 megahertz of prime federal spectrum for shared use by the private sector,” he said. “While there is a looming limit to the amount of spectrum the military and other agencies can vacate for more auctions, the PCAST wisely looks ahead to the much greater opportunity to share vast amounts of underutilized spectrum while protecting primary federal operations from interference. The technology is available now for widespread federal band sharing thanks in large part to the FCC’s implementation of the geolocation databases that allows shared use of vacant TV channels without harming TV reception. The PCAST is correct that we need to extend that governance system for shared spectrum, beginning this year with the lightly-used 3550-3650 MHz radar bands."