Mobile Broadband: A 21st Century Plan for U.S. Competitiveness, Innovation and Job Creation

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: dewayne () warpspeed com (Dewayne Hendricks)
Date: February 25, 2010 10:12:01 AM EST
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <xyzzy () warpspeed com>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Mobile Broadband: A 21st Century Plan for U.S. Competitiveness, Innovation and Job Creation

Mobile Broadband: A 21st Century Plan for U.S. Competitiveness, Innovation and Job Creation

At a new America Foundation event Feb 24, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski outlined 
spectrum-related recommendations for the National Broadband Plan. The goal, he said: To benefit all Americans and 
promote our global competitiveness, the U.S. must have the fastest, most robust, and most extensive mobile broadband 
networks, and the most innovative mobile broadband marketplace in the world. The plan, then, will be to accelerate the 
broad deployment of mobile broadband by moving to recover and reallocate spectrum; update our 20th century spectrum 
policies to reflect 21st century technologies and opportunities; remove barriers to broadband buildout, lower the cost 
of deployment, and promote competition.

The Broadband Plan will represent the first important step in what FCC Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker has called 
"an ongoing strategic planning process on spectrum policy -- to ensure that the agency's stewardship of the public's 
airwaves is smart, future-oriented, and serves as an ongoing engine of innovation and investment." The National 
Broadband Plan will set a goal of freeing up 500 Megahertz of spectrum over the next decade.

The plan will propose a "Mobile Future Auction" -- an auction permitting existing spectrum licensees, such as 
television broadcasters in spectrum-starved markets, to voluntarily relinquish spectrum in exchange for a share of 
auction proceeds, and allow spectrum sharing and other spectrum efficiency measures. The plan will also recommend 
applying a flexible approach to other frequency bands, where our rules-technical rules, service rules-may be holding 
back the broadband potential of large swaths of spectrum.

The Plan proposes resolving longstanding debates about how to maximize the value of spectrum in bands such as the 
Mobile Satellite Service (MSS) or Wireless Communications Service (WCS) by giving licensees the option of new 
flexibility to put the spectrum toward mobile broadband use-or the option of voluntarily transferring the license to 
someone else who will.

In addition, the National Broadband Plan will encourage innovative ways of using of spectrum, including what some call 
"opportunistic" uses, to encourage the development of new technologies and new spectrum policy models. The plan will 
also include a recommendation that we invest a sufficient amount in R&D to ensure that the science underpinning 
spectrum use continues to advance.

Finally, and critically, to improve mobile communications for our first responders, we will develop the 700 MHz public 
safety broadband network to achieve long overdue interoperability. The plan will also recommend that we establish and 
fund an Emergency Response Interoperability Center (ERIC) within the FCC to develop common technical standards for 
interoperability on the public safety broadband network from the start, and to update these standards periodically as 
broadband technology evolves.

<http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-296490A1.doc>

Courtesy of the Benton Foundation <http://www.benton.org>RSS Feed: <http://www.warpspeed.com/wordpress>




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