WASHINGTON-Top Pentagon brass-angrily responding to new revelations U.S. military communications have disrupted wireless telecom operations abroad and major U.S. weapons have been rendered useless due to lackluster Defense Department frequency coordination-said the Clinton administration’s auction-driven wireless policy is misguided and is compromising America’s military readiness.
Comments on U.S. wireless policy by the staff of Joint Chiefs of Staff, included in an Oct. 9 Department of Defense inspector general report offer a revealing behind-the-scenes glimpse at how protective Pentagon officials are of their spectrum and how much disdain they have for U.S. policies that have fostered new technologies, like personal communications services, and wireless competition through auctions in recent years.
Much of DOD’s angst stems from 1993 legislation that required the federal government to transfer 235 megahertz to the private sector for new wireless services. The spectrum comes to the private sector with a price that came to light last week: A defense authorization bill signed by President Clinton on Oct. 17 requires bidders that buy ex-government spectrum in future FCC auctions to compensate federal agencies for relocating displaced government licensees and their systems to other frequencies.
The new requirement could have a chilling effect on bidding because the FCC must notify prospective bidders in advance of estimated relocation costs involved.
The strong desire of the Pentagon and other federal agencies to prevent more spectrum from being taken away could impact the controversial policy debate on third-generation wireless technology. Some parties want to earmark huge chunks of spectrum for 3G wireless, but that could be difficult given the scarcity of vacant commercial frequencies and the Pentagon-led fight to avoid surrendering any more spectrum.
DOD’s inspector general incorporated the following Joint Staff language into the report’s conclusion: “Increasing demands on radio-frequency spectrum to support emerging technology and the increased propensity of national governments (including the U.S.) to sell the radio-frequency spectrum to various international commercial interests create spectrum congestion, increase potential for degraded telecommunications services and harmful interference, and impact the DOD goal of spectrum supremacy.”
While the Joint Staff said it generally agreed with the inspector general’s findings, it played down the Pentagon’s international frequency coordination lapses and instead chose to pin most of the blame on U.S. and global telecom policies.
Explaining its position in comments attached to one of the IG report’s appendices, the Joint Staff said, “National sales of the frequency spectrum and the associated international policy issues are at the root of the problem. More emerging technology demands worldwide plus increasing international consensus for decreasing worldwide frequency spectrum for military use will eventually negate the stated DOD goal of `spectrum supremacy.’ Global commercial interests will have co-opted spectrum supremacy while eroding individual nation’s regulatory authority. This is a major policy issue and a minor procedural issue. This report needs to state that upfront, otherwise it will fall far short in corrective action implementation by emphasizing procedural deficiencies over unfavorable policy practices. Proposing more regulatory changes to failing regulations is of limited value when the policy predetermines the failures.”
The IG report also found that military exchanges were selling wireless products “not covered by or compliant with host-nation international frequency coordination agreements.” Program costs associated with inadequate DOD frequency coordination totaled nearly $39.5 billion, the IG said.
The report identified 89 telecommunications systems, including spectrum-dependent components of other major systems, deployed by U.S. military in European, Pacific and Asian theaters without prior frequency-coordination approvals.
Already there has been a backlash. The report said Germany has passed a law to allow the confiscation of radio equipment that accesses a frequency that has not been approved.
South Korea, the IG said, has denied permanent frequencies for the Patriot Missile System until the Pentagon obtains proper clearance. Even a grant of temporary frequencies on a 90-day basis by Korea for the Patriot has created interference to civilian cellular systems.
“If those [temporary] frequency assignments are ever denied, the battalion cannot perform its mission because of inoperable communications links,” the IG report stated.
