The policies that guide spectrum access drive everything from commercial wireless technology innovation to the progress of societal structures. Recognizing the importance of spectrum policies that support the various needs and values of all, the Aspen Institute held a policy roundtable in July 2024. Attended by government and public-/private-sector stakeholders, the roundtable built on work accomplished by the Aspen Institute’s 2022 roundtable and report.
The new report, “Implementing the National Spectrum Strategy,” was published by Aspen Digital, a program of the Aspen Institute, in September 2024. It outlines a set of recommendations intended to guide the next period of spectrum policy leadership in the United States.
“… Over the past several decades, the U.S. has been the international leader by developing, in a bipartisan fashion, new spectrum policies to meet increasing commercial demand. Despite tremendous progress in the last three decades, however, the U.S. once again finds itself with a need to develop ways to enable the wireless revolution to meet the demands of new innovative technologies and services,” the report said.
Summarized here, the wireless spectrum report’s five broad recommendations (and some details on sub-recommendations) are:
1. Prioritize Principled and Forward-Looking Policies. The U.S. government should ensure that future spectrum policy is non-partisan, science-based, promotes collaboration, supports long-term planning, and encourages transparency. Spectrum policy plans should build on past efforts while acknowledging that much work remains to place the U.S. for future leadership in spectrum-based markets, technologies, and national security.
2. Balancing Values and Perspectives. Effective U.S. spectrum policy must balance interconnected key values such as national security; economic interests and global competition; consumer, enterprise and public safety needs; and innovation and scientific discovery. At the roundtable, diverse stakeholders discussed these issues, leading to a general consensus.
3. Continue to Seek New Spectrum Access Opportunities. Recommendations include evaluating additional bands for reallocation and repurposing; further exploring spectrum sharing development and opportunities; and building upon the United States’ successful 30-year track record in auctioning spectrum. The last recommendation includes restoring FCC auction authority, conducting another incentive auction, and pushing the frontiers of economic theory to ensure the highest and best spectrum use.
4. Promote Coordination Domestically and Abroad. Two key elements of this recommendation are to enhance trust and cooperation between federal and non-federal stakeholders; and to ensure continued and enhanced international spectrum leadership and harmonization. The former proposal recommended that the U.S. government improve transparency regarding progress toward spectrum policy goals, including updates on NSS spectrum study deliverables.
5. Expand on Existing Recommendations. There were some similarities between recommendations discussed at the 2024 roundtable and those covered in the 2022 report. These included: enhancing transparency regarding federal and non-federal spectrum use and needs, such as by creating a tailored inventory of spectrum use; reforming the gaps in the Commercial Spectrum Enhancement Act (CSEA); conducting targeted community outreach on spectrum technologies and policies/ and enhancing efforts to promote career opportunities in radiofrequency engineering to bolster the spectrum workforce.
Roundtable participants’ efforts “sought to balance the needs of both the commercial wireless sector and federal missions, while highlighting consensus-based themes across all interested vectors,” said the Aspen Digital wireless spectrum report. These broad recommendations are intended to foster “a principled and science-based U.S. spectrum policy for the years ahead.”
Wireless spectrum is a hot topic. Earlier this year, the FCC introduced an initiative — the Enhanced Competition Incentive Program (ECIP) — aimed at making wireless spectrum available to small carriers and Tribal Nations. The program is designed to provide incentives to existing spectrum holders to make some of their spectrum available to those entities.