It’s an old worn story, but the drum beat seems to be getting louder and the momentum growing for a greater accounting of federal government spectrum-how much agencies have and how they use it.
A cloud of intrigue has hung over government spectrum for so long that the gross lack of transparency is largely accepted and institutionalized in U.S. spectrum policy. But all the talk of spectrum reform does not amount to a hill of beans if federal government spectrum is walled off from serious scrutiny. The government controls about one-third of all spectrum. Meantime, demand for the finite spectrum resource is growing.
Some of the murkiness surrounding federal spectrum is due to the classified nature of frequencies held by the largest government user-the Department of Defense. But the shroud of secrecy is also a product of a government culture (not to mention political cowardice in confronting it) that values the airwaves far differently than the private sector. There are some legitimate and some not-so-sound reasons for the government’s spectrum mindset. The government does not have a profit motive, and federal agencies often design radio systems for safety-related applications. But federal spectrum has earned something of a sacred-cow status.
No doubt there are government agencies that make good use of their radio channels. But how would you ever know?
Commerce Deputy Secretary David Sampson recently suggested an incentives-based approach to federal spectrum management that is long overdue. But that is not good enough. Neither is the Bush administration’s call for greater government use of spectrum-efficient technologies.
“So long as spectrum is a `free’ resource to a government agency, there is no clear incentive for the agency to do other than to hoard spectrum against the possibility that it may be useful sometime in the future,” stated a report from The Progress & Freedom Foundation.
The authors recommended the government conduct an up-to-date inventory of its spectrum holdings and include findings in the registry; require NTIA to report annually to Congress on government spectrum usage; establish reward structures encouraging government employees to economize on their agencies’ uses and holdings of spectrum; require federal agencies to buy or lease additional spectrum; pursue innovative ways to promote efficient spectrum use by the government; and encourage agencies to purchase communications services from commercial providers rather than making it a government function.
Without squarely addressing the federal government spectrum issue, there cannot be serious spectrum reform in the United States.
