WASHINGTON-Despite being overruled by his fellow commissioners, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Reed Hundt has signaled his intention to campaign aggressively for a highly deregulatory, market-driven spectrum policy.
Using the office of chairman as a bully pulpit, Hundt turned his speech at the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association’s annual meeting in San Francisco last week into a pitch for industry support of his no-holds-barred spectrum approach.
“We should get spectrum into the private market in a measured but steady way,” Hundt said in his prepared speech. “We should let licensees use it flexibly, with easy transferability and no artificial buildout requirements, channel loading rules, or efficiency standards.”
Under Hundt’s spectrum scheme, only interference limits should be set. And he does not believe the government should hold spectrum back from the market, despite fear in the wireless telecom industry that too much spectrum and too much flexibility will undercut investment and competition.
John McCain (R-Ariz.), chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, is studying whether spectrum should be released into the marketplace at periodic intervals based on policy considerations and market conditions.
Hundt’s approach has a spot carved out for public safety spectrum, which the commission began giving higher priority to after being prodded by Congress a few years ago.
Hundt has had a hard time winning converts, though. His support appears limited to FCC economists and Wireless Telecommunications Bureau Chief Michele Farquhar, who is leaving the agency next month. Hundt referred to Farquhar as market-driven spectrum policy’s “leading proponent.”
In January, Commissioners James Quello, Susan Ness and Rachelle Chong refused to parlay Hundt’s spectrum philosophy into a commission policy statement on the airwaves.
Instead, the deregulatory spectrum approach was reduced to a manifesto authored by FCC economist Gregory Rosston and lawyer Jeffrey Steinberg. (RCR, March 3, p. 59).
Hundt now appears ready to mount an aggressive campaign to win support for his spectrum policy goals.
To do so, the FCC chairman has employed a variety of techniques to bolster his cause. In his CTIA speech and interview with RCR prior to the convention, Hundt criticized the agency for failing to inject more flexibility into wireless licensing at the front end.
“Initially, the FCC restricted PCS spectrum use,” said Hundt. “The industry spent time and money seeking flexibility. That should have been automatic.”
Hundt referred to a `New Spectrum Policy’ in his speech, though no such new spectrum policy exists. The FCC has given wireless licensees more flexibility in recent years, but the wholesale changes advocated by Hundt lack support from other commissioners.
Except for a safe harbor for public safety spectrum, Hundt’s market-driven spectrum approach does not distinguish between commercial wireless spectrum-spectrum exploited by companies in the communications business-and private wireless spectrum-spectrum used for internal systems by companies not in the communications business.
