Comparing the spectrum crisis to the energy crisis

The current debate over spectrum access and the looming "spectrum crisis" contains numerous parallels to the ongoing debate over the national energy crisis. Everyone agrees that, under current business models, current technology, and current assumptions, our national policies cannot meet the increasing needs of commercial users, federal users, and state and local governments. Also paralleling the energy crises, most of the solutions proposed focus on traditional solutions of finding "more" spectrum rather than what could be called "spectrum conservation," using technology and changing patterns of consumption to stretch existing resources further. Nowhere is this "drill, baby, drill" mentality more prevalent than in the proposed approaches to federal, state and local spectrum access. The predominant proposals with regard to federal use revolve around clearing federal users and auctioning the cleared bands. Commercial interests generally display the same shortsighted and unsustainable attitudes toward state and municipal government. Most comments from commercial operators regard state and local governments as obstacles requiring federal preemption rather than as potential partners in developing innovative solutions. Such proposals, while attractive in the short term, are unsustainable in the long term. PK recommends that the federal government:

• Increase mixed use through opportunistic sharing and secondary markets in ways that do not interfere with existing federal use or prevent future auctions of spectrum.
• Combine the allocations of all federal agencies into a single "federal pool" managed by NTIA in consultation with the Federal Chief Technology Officer (CTO).
• Streamline the process of private applications for "mixed federal use" and approval of opportunistic sharing technologies within 1 year as provided for by law.
• Increase the frequency and quality of FCC/NTIA coordination, and improve transparency in the management of federal spectrum.