A recently released paper has advised that in order to provide commercial mobile broadband with more wireless spectrum the US Federal Communication should look at having government agencies give up some of their unused spectrum as well as TV broadcasters.
The study was recently released by a conservative think tank called the Technology Policy Institute (TPI) and its authors advised that the FCC would not be able to rely on the release of unused wireless spectrum from the just the TV stations and that there would be a need for much more spectrum if mobile broadband was to grow at the rate they expected. The recommendation from the study was for a new agency to be created to lease spectrum to individual government bodies, the Government Spectrum Ownership Corp. (GSOC).
The co-author of the study and an economics professor at New York University, Lawrence White advised that the efficient use of wireless spectrum would be encouraged by the GSOC with the government agencies handing back any spectrum they no longer required. Commercial mobile broadband providers would then be able to obtain the returned wireless spectrum through an auction said White.
In a recent TPI forum he advised that the government spectrum was “the elephant in the room, the 900-pound gorilla in the room. There’s a lot of spectrum, and there’s a strong suspicion not all of it is being efficiently used.”
White said that the model for the GSOC was similar to that of the US General Service Administration, which subleased buildings to other agencies and this model moved agencies away from giving excessive figures for their real estate requirements.
An effort to release 500MHz of wireless spectrum over the next ten years for mobile broadband use through the agencies National Broadband Plan, which is due for release at some point in March, was recently announced by the chairman of the FCC Julius Genachowski.
Source – PC World