On Friday OTI joined with Public Knowledge, Common Cause, and the Institute for Local Self-Reliance in submitting reply comments to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on the effort to establish a Citizen’s Broadband Radio Service in the 3.5 GHz band of spectrum.
This proceeding stems from the 2012 report published by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) that recommended the government allow greater access to federal spectrum frequencies. Often, federal spectrum bands are used only at certain times or in specific geographic regions -- in this case, by naval radar along coasts -- and lie fallow in the rest of the country.
In “Use it Or Share it,” a paper published by OTI in 2011, Michael Calabrese, director of OTI’s Wireless Future Project, recommended that the FCC open up this band for opportunistic, unlicensed use. The PCAST report (of which Calabrese was a co-author) recommended a opportunistically sharing access to this spectrum, allowing it to be reused by both mobile carriers for commercial service and individuals on an unlicensed basis (similar to Wi-Fi) in regions of the country where is it not in use by the government.
The current FCC proceeding follows up on these recommendations, proposing the creation of a Citizen’ Broadband Radio Service across 150 MHz. It marks a potential historic step toward accommodating more dynamic, shared and spectrum-efficient approaches that harness the full potential of our nation’s spectrum.
Our comments focus on ensuring that the framework for using federal spectrum includes robust support for unlicensed access similar to current Wi-Fi technology. Wi-Fi has proven to be an immensely popular, useful and flexible technology, and the FCC has an important opportunity to allow additional spectrum to be utilized in a similar way.
