Federal Spectrum Reports Good Starting Point, Industry Officials Say
The government spectrum reports NTIA posted April 11 offer a good start on making better information on federal use of various bands more widely available, wireless industry officials said in interviews last week. The industry has sought better information as it looks at bands that are well suited for sharing or clearing for commercial use (CD April 14 p12).
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A wireless carrier executive said industry ultimately would like to see a more interactive, less static documents, but the reports are helpful. “There’s a lot of information presented in a way that’s understandable,” the official said. “It gives you a feel for the kind of systems that are operating in each band, the mix of systems, a feel for the extent of the use.” The carrier executive said the analysis across various bands is probably the most information the government will make available.
Some of the information was available before “in the bowels of spectrum management,” but some of the data is new, the carrier official said. “It’s difficult to come by this level of information when you're on the outside of the government. ... It has become progressively difficult to get just this level of information.” The report gives industry a place to “start looking” at other bands, the official said. “It will help us make some informed judgments about the potential for either relocation of government users or sharing with government users.” The report does not contain usage information. Working through government spectrum use in the AWS-3 band, industry found that in some cases the government might have 50 assignments for various systems “but the reality was there were a couple of those where they were primary locations ... the others were much more secondary if they were even used at all.”
"I would suspect that any information that was provided helps all the stakeholders get a better sense of current and expected future spectrum use by the federal government,” said a former FCC spectrum official. “This information has been very slow to get into the public domain, so this is a very positive first step."
But a former FCC legal adviser questioned how useful the data will be. It is “hard to gauge the value of this information,” the lawyer said. “On the one hand, I don’t recall that the AWS-1 effort had a dedicated website and blog posts. On the other, it seems to be a mix of publicly available, basic information along with some spin.”
"Without passing judgment at this point on the accuracy and completeness of the posted information -- which, ultimately, of course, is most important -- I nevertheless commend NTIA for getting this project underway and getting the information online,” said Randolph May, president of the Free State Foundation. “It seems to me that, having taken this initial step, there ought to be some forward momentum created for improving the database and making it more interactive. While it would be easy to criticize the government for just now doing what it has done, I'd prefer to give a modest pat on the back and say, ‘now improve on what you've done.'"
A closer look at the information the government released showed that some of the data are very concrete. One source cited the information on the 1350-1390 MHz band, which is used by the military and other federal agencies for a variety of purposes (http://1.usa.gov/1hPFVaF), including air traffic control, border surveillance, early warning missile detection and “drug interdiction.” The document offers a series of maps of “spectrum contours” in 5-MHz segments, providing basic information on places where nongovernment systems could safely operate.
NTIA posted information on spectrum bands from 225 MHz to 5 GHz, which are “the part of the spectrum receiving growing interest and demand for consumer wireless and government applications,” according to the agency (http://1.usa.gov/1gDF6MM).