Spectrum battle splits industry, government

Officials with the departments of Defense and Justice rejected proposals at an April 4 conference by the telecommunications industry to allocate more spectrum for commercial use.

Industry officials at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration's Spectrum Summit in Washington argued that more bandwidth is sorely needed to open new markets and remain technologically competitive with other countries.

The two-day summit, which continues April 5, is an effort by the NTIA to gather ideas regarding how to allocate the government's bandwidth more efficiently and, possibly, allotting some of it to commercial use.

The panels on both days are co-moderated by NTIA leaders and representatives from Federal Communications Commission, which regulates commercial use of the airwave.

John Stanton, chief executive officer for Voicestream Wireless Corp., Bellevue, Wash., said other countries such as Japan, the United Kingdom and Germany have allocated more spectrum to commercial use and are jumping ahead of the United States technologically and in regards to opening new markets.

"Ultimately, we may not live in a competitive economy 20 years from now," Stanton said.

Industry leaders advocated a concept called dynamic allocation, where chunks of spectrum are shared between military and public safety users during a crisis, but then revert back to commercial users at all other times.

However, Pentagon and Justice officials argued that in light of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, government spectrum needs to be securely in government hands for times of crisis.

"I am terrified of some of what it recommended" in the proposals to shift or share defense department allotted bandwidth, said John Stenbit, assistant secretary of defense for command, control, communications and intelligence. The problem with the industry proposal, he said, is the risk all falls on the Department of Defense.

Many of his concerns revolved around how to fund and carry out the work required to shift the frequencies of the Defense Department's equipment. Although the Treasury Department might receive a good deal of money by auctioning spectrum space, that money wouldn't necessarily filter down to the Defense Department to pay for the changes that would be needed, he said.