WifiForward, Others Seek 'Balanced Approach' in National Spectrum Strategy
WifiForward led a letter with Comcast and others urging NTIA to “take a balanced approach to the spectrum pipeline” and promote “unlicensed and shared-licensed use” of frequencies as part of its work on the upcoming national spectrum strategy. NTIA seeks…
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comments through Monday on how it should proceed on the strategy. Austin Bonner, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy assistant director-spectrum and telecom policy, noted optimism about the trajectory of work on the strategy following recent NTIA listening sessions (see 2304120070). “We all recognize the value of models supporting shared use, either through unlicensed use or licensed use that is dynamically shared on a priority basis,” WifiForward and other groups told NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson in a letter we obtained ahead of its planned Friday release. “While exclusive-licensing plays a role in a balanced spectrum policy, an over-reliance on it serves the deployment decisions and business models of a small group of large, nationwide carriers.” The “innovation our country needs to make the most of spectrum moving forward will also require shared licensing and unlicensed spectrum,” the groups said: “Unlicensed spectrum offers low barriers to entry for innovators, enables easy access for consumers and supports the Wi-Fi connections over which most internet data travels. Shared-licensed spectrum supports competitive wireless networks and other innovative and diverse uses, while also allowing multiple types of users to coexist.” WifiForward and others said the strategy should “foster” Wi-Fi because it’s an area in which “the U.S. has a competitive and economic edge.” They want “technical rules that create guardrails enabling unlike technologies to operate in the same band, such as indoor-use restrictions.” The entities also seek smaller licenses that “are more accessible for companies outside the large cellular carriers.”