WASHINGTON-A new congressional report concludes the existing spectrum-management regime does not promote efficient use of the nation’s airwaves and needs repair, a finding that comes as the Bush administration prepares to release its own spectrum findings.
“The current structure and management of spectrum use in the United States does not encourage the development and use of some spectrum-efficient technologies,” said the General Accounting Office.
The report-based on spectrum usage of nine key federal agencies-was requested by House Government Reform Committee Chairman Tom Davis (R-Va.), and Rep. Adam Putnam (R-Fla.), chairman of the committee’s panel on technology and information policy.
GAO is working on several other spectrum reports requested by the full committee.
“Because the spectrum allocation framework largely compartmentalizes spectrum by types of services (such as aeronautical radio navigation) and users (federal, nonfederal, and shared), the capability of emerging technologies designed to use spectrum in different ways is often diminished,” stated GAO.
GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, recommended that National Telecommunications and Information Administration and Federal Communications Commission heads:
- Jointly assess and determine the feasibility of redefining the spectrum allocation system to build in greater flexibility where appropriate to facilitate emerging technologies;
- Develop and implement plans to gain a more thorough and ongoing understanding of the current spectrum environment;
- And strengthen efforts to develop jointly accepted models and methodologies to assess the impact of new technologies on overall spectrum use and increase opportunities to permit testing of those technologies.
In addition, GAO urged the NTIA administrator TO to establish guidance for agencies to determine and report their future spectrum requirements; to strengthen NTIA’s spectrum certification process to more directly address spectrum efficiency; and to determine approaches, where appropriate, for providing incentives to agencies to use spectrum more efficiently and then pilot and measure the effectiveness of those approaches.
