Administration Nearly Halfway to 2020 Target for Broadband Spectrum, NTIA Says
The Obama administration is almost halfway to meeting its target of providing 500 MHz of additional spectrum for broadband in 10 years, NTIA Associate Administrator Paige Atkins said Wednesday in a blog post. The target was set in 2010. “I’m…
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happy to report that we are making steady progress toward meeting the President’s 500 megahertz goal,” Atkins wrote. “In the last five years, NTIA and the FCC have repurposed 245 megahertz of spectrum that will enable the deployment of licensed and unlicensed broadband technologies.” Atkins included among the administration’s accomplishments the spectrum sold in the AWS-3 auction and the 3.5 GHz shared spectrum band. “While we’re on track to achieve the President’s goal, we recognize there is still much work to do,” she said. “The next opportunity to generate additional spectrum for wireless broadband will come early next year with the FCC’s planned launch of the first-ever spectrum incentive auction.” Finding spectrum for broadband is “a process that only increases in difficulty,” she said. “However, we are confident that our recent collaborative efforts have laid a foundation for us to build upon and charted a course for producing additional success stories.” NTIA “is a bit aggressive in its accounting,” CTIA Executive Vice President Brad Gillen said in an emailed response. “For example, it’s premature to count the 3.5 GHz spectrum given the substantial questions that still remain about the framework for its use,” Gillen said. He also questioned whether the 10 MHz of Wireless Communications Service guard band can be counted for broadband use. “None of that takes away from the Administration’s significant efforts to get as far as we have in five years,” he said. “It is undeniable that NTIA has been instrumental in making valuable finite spectrum available for commercial wireless service providers."