Government Plan For Wireless Spectrum Hunt Unveiled
By David McGuire, Newsbytes
WASHINGTON, D.C., U.S.A.,
20 Oct 2000, 5:19 PM CST
The Commerce Department today unveiled its plan of attack for hunting down blocks of radio airwave "spectrum" to be auctioned off to third-generation (3G) wireless Internet companies.
Late last week, President Clinton, in an executive memorandum, charged the Commerce Department, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Defense Department with the job of finding ways to reallocate radio band spectrum currently being used both by government agencies and non-governmental airwave users.
The White House memo set today as the deadline for the agencies to outline their plan of attack.
The plan, which is posted online at ntia.doc.gov , contains input from all three agencies and outlines "the necessary steps that will result in the licensing of third generation wireless systems by September 30, 2002," Commerce Secretary Norman Mineta said in a release today.
During a conference call last week to unveil the initiative administration officials and agency heads stressed the need for the United States to remain competitive the wireless Internet arena.
"Within the next 10 years, two-thirds of (wireless industry) revenues will come from data and non-voice communications," National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) Director Greg Rhode told reporters during that conference call.
"If the (United States) does not ... come up to the plate on this, then we will quickly fall behind," he warned, noting that many European countries have already allocated substantial spectrum resources to the wireless Internet.
One of the main sources of potential spectrum being targeted under the administration initiative is a huge block of airwaves currently reserved for use by the Defense Department.
The Defense Department has agreed to work with the Commerce Department and the FCC to find ways to reallocate some of the spectrum currently under its control.
In conjunction with unveiling the reallocation project, the White House Council of Economic Advisors last week released a report detailing the potential economic benefits that the nation could reap by facilitating the development of "3G" wireless technology.
The report, which is available in PDF format on the White House Web site at whitehouse.gov , predicts that the development of broadband wireless Internet technologies will herald a multi-billion-dollar boon to US companies and, by proxy, the nation's economy.
Reported by Newsbytes.com, newsbytes.com .
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