The Senate wants to make way more spectrum available

Under the draft text of a bill now being informally considered by the Senate Commerce Committee, the government could be instructed to find and relinquish an additional 20 megahertz of publicly owned spectrum beyond the 30 MHz President Barack Obama agreed to when he signed the two-year budget deal.

Agencies would be required to auction off the total 50 MHz by 2024. The move accelerates an important push by industry and lawmakers to build a long-term "spectrum pipeline" designed to ensure that the country's wireless communications networks can keep growing. The draft legislation provides other incentives to speed up the deployment of mobile and wired Internet access. To encourage government agencies to give up the spectrum they currently hold but may not be using, the draft bill proposes to give them up to a 25 percent cut of auction proceeds. It would enshrine into law a voluntary commitment in 2010 by President Obama to clear up 500 MHz of spectrum by 2020. And it includes an idea that would make it easier for Internet providers to lay down new networks, known as "dig once."