IP: Pentagon Leaders Urge Congress to Delay Spectrum Decision

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
>
> [Note:  I was wondering how long it would take them to play the 'national 
> security' card on this matter.  No need to wonder anymore. DLH]
>
>  Pentagon Leaders Urge Congress to Delay Spectrum Decision
>
> By Robert Burns, Associated Press
> 08/30/01, 6:12 PM
> <http://www.mbusinessdaily.com/story/news/MBZ20010830S0006>
>
> In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., Defense 
> Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Army Gen. Henry H. Shelton, chairman of 
> the Joint Chiefs of Staff, urged that Congress make no decision to 
> reallocate the airwaves "until truly comparable spectrum is identified and 
> made available.'' Relinquishing airwaves used by the Pentagon to make room 
> for the mobile communications industry would jeopardize national security, 
> says the Pentagon's top civilian and military leaders.
>
> They wrote that the U.S. wireless industry wants the 1755MHz-to-1850MHz 
> band for third-generation (3G) wireless communications such as global 
> high-speed Internet access. "Sharing the band is not practical,'' Rumsfeld 
> and Shelton wrote, and relinquishing some or all of the band cannot be 
> completed in this decade.
>
> Rumsfeld and Shelton said the Defense Department depends on the 
> 1755MHz-to-1850MHz band for vital military uses, including guiding 
> missiles to their targets and tracking and commanding satellite systems 
> such as the Defense Support Program satellites that provide warning of 
> missile launches.
>
> "Forced relocation will have serious consequences on our national security 
> and increase the risk to military personnel,'' they wrote. A September 
> 2002 deadline set by Congress for an auction of new bandwidth licenses for 
> wireless services might be delayed because of the Pentagon's resistance. 
> The Federal Communications Commission and the Commerce Department, which 
> respectively oversee commercial and federal use of the airwaves, missed a 
> July deadline for determining where the space will come from.



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