House Panel Agrees Spectrum Planning Is Crucial

The House Communications Subcommittee is busy on the government spectrum front, signaling that the Federal Communications Commission needs to help come up with a plan for auctioning free-up government spectrum and identifying potential new bands for clearing and sharing.

That was the subject of a House Communications Subcommittee hearing, where there are a number of bills in the works to goose the FCC effort and incentivize government agencies to fully engage in the process. Among the takeaways from the hearing was that sharing, rather than relocating, is a good short-term solution, but that, long-term, there needs to be a planning and research and development and that it is key for agencies to be shown the upside of cooperating.