America’s Bipartisan Spectrum Opportunity

[Commentary] Supplying more radio spectrum to satisfy Americans’ rocketing demand for more mobile bandwidth is a bipartisan and common sense goal. Fortunately Congress has an exceptional opportunity in Dec’s must-pass omnibus spending bill to work together to make significantly more progress toward this bipartisan congressional goal and the President’s pledge to make 500 megahertz of spectrum available by 2020 for both licensed and unlicensed use.

Congress needs to work on a bipartisan basis with the Administration to get this high economic priority done in the pending omnibus spending bill. It can’t wait another year, because demand for radio spectrum is growing at roughly 100 percent annually. No bipartisan cooperation on spectrum reallocation means stunting America’s twenty first century mobile opportunity.

[Scott Cleland is the Chariman of NetCompetition and president of Precursor LLC]