WASHINGTON-The Senate Commerce Committee may have killed the wireless industry’s hopes of gaining much-desired frequencies in the 1700 MHz band when it amended a bill to allow the Pentagon to be reimbursed for vacating that spectrum.
The amendment would allow a digital broadcast satellite license applicant to offer a wireless Internet solution to rural America. The company in question, Northpoint Technologies Ltd., has been in a long-running battle to offer its service, which uses satellite and terrestrial technology.
The amendment passed by a 13-8 roll-call vote, and then the underlying bill-which many had thought would pass the committee without controversy-was sent to the Senate floor.
In addition to the wireless industry’s opposition to Northpoint getting its license outside the auction process, the amendment to the Commercial Spectrum Enhancement Act could have far-reaching consequences.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, said the Bush administration had sent him a letter indicating it would oppose the spectrum relocation trust fund legislation if it had any amendments attached to it.
“The administration believes that the spectrum relocation fund will be an important spectrum management tool to streamline the process for reimbursing government users, to facilitate their relocation to comparable spectrum, and to provide greater certainty to auction bidders and incumbents,” said Theodore Kassinger, general counsel of the Department of Commerce. “The administration is pleased that the legislation closely tracks the administration’s spectrum relocation fund proposal. The administration, however, would strongly oppose any amendment to the bill. Any amendment could delay enactment of the spectrum relocation fund and jeopardize this important opportunity to expedite the opening of spectrum to new commercial uses and consumer services.”
The Northpoint amendment will add four or five extra steps to the process of getting the bill passed, said Steven Berry, senior vice president of government affairs for the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association. But Berry expressed confidence that CTIA’s goal of a clean Senate bill will be realized.
“The chairman and [Sen. Ernest Hollings (D-S.C.), ranking member,] did vote against [the Northpoint amendment], and sometimes you have to meet the chairman at a conference committee,” said Berry. “If it hadn’t been Northpoint, it would have been something else.”
Even if the wireless industry is successful in stripping the Northpoint provision from the relocation trust fund bill, it will have to do battle with Senate appropriators who believe the bill is an attempt by the Office of Management and Budget to get money allocated outside the appropriations process.
Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, warned the issue would resurface in the Senate when the relocation bill is debated on the Senate floor.
The Stevens amendment would require the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to provide to Congress an estimate of the costs and a timeline for relocating the military out of the 1700 MHz band. Unless Congress rejected the estimate within 30 days, it would be deemed approved. A similar process would be put in place for OMB to specify how the money from the auction would be used for the military relocation.
Berry hopes to be able to convince Stevens and Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.V.), ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, that there are enough safeguards built into the bill to protect against Capitol Hill losing control over the purse strings of the Department of Defense.
“That is the same sort of expression of concern we dealt with over on the House side,” said Berry. The House version of the bill “didn’t make it out of the House because the appropriators rolled over.”
It is unclear whether any changes to relocation legislation in the Senate will disrupt the delicate balance-requiring DoD buy-in-which has enabled the initiative to get this far in the political process.
“The House version looks fine to us,” said Owen Wormser, principal director of spectrum, space, sensors and command, control and communications at the Pentagon.
DoD officials did not comment on Senate treatment of the relocation bill.
Military brass, among other things, want guaranteed access to third-generation spectrum auction revenue the Pentagon would need to migrate communications and weapons systems from the 1710-1755 MHz band to other frequencies.
The lack of that assurance is a potential deal breaker and the Bush administration’s 3G-spectrum plan could easily unravel.
RCR Wireless News Washington Bureau Chief Jeffrey Silva contributed to this report.
