Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Comm Daily -- September 5, 2003 -- Philosophical Differences]

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 05 Sep 2003 16:53:17 -0400

Communications Daily -- September 5, 2003 Philosophical Differences  DoT SEES
NEED TO REVAMP FEDERAL GOVT. SPECTRUM PROCESSES  Current federal govt. systems for
coordinating spectrum management between agencies and private users need to be
revamped, said Joel Szabat, Dept. of Transportation (DoT) deputy asst.
secy.-transportation policy.  DoT is participating with other federal spectrum
users in an interagency task force created by President Bush in June to recommend
how to stimulate more efficient govt. use.  The challenge is how to balance
safety-of-life systems such as GPS and public safety while making room for new
technology, Szabat said.  "We want to protect those needs and still allow for the
robust development of new commercial technology," he told us in an
interview.  President Bush's executive memorandum created an interagency task
force to examine issues related to federal spectrum management (CD June 6 p1).
The group has a year to come up with recommendations for improving process and
policies.  Along with a forum for some private sector involvement, the
Presidential directive called for legislative and other recommendations on
modernized and improved spectrum policy changes to create incentives for more
efficient use.  Besides DoT, the task force includes officials from the
departments of Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Homeland Security, Interior, Justice,
NASA and others.  The effort comes as participants in policy decisions such as
making spectrum available for 3G, for Wi-Fi at 5 GHz and for ultra-wideband (UWB)
in some cases have criticized the process as taking too long.  The General
Accounting Office earlier this year called for an independent federal commission
to examine U.S. spectrum manageme nt, citing past govt. difficulties in resolving
disputes among users (CD Feb 4 p2).  "From the Department of Transportation's
perspective, the federal government's existing spectrum management systems and
protocols are not well-suited to handle the developing challenges," Szabat said.
"The FCC and the NTIA manage users, not spectrum.  So the potential that we have
under the current system is for conflict."  In the past, conflict between
commercial users and govt. operators had been avoidable in some cases because
adequate spectrum allocations had been available for each.  "The only thing that
is preventing conflict now is the good will between the FCC and the NTIA.  That's
not a model that you want to see going forward," he said.  Among the recent
decisions that have brought different perspectives to the fore between govt.
agencies and the commercial sector is an order adopted by the FCC in Feb. 2001 on
UWB.  Aviation interests, including FAA and NASA, and the GPS industry had raised
some of the loudest concerns about UWB's potential to interfere with critical
safety-of-life systems.  "The DoT's position was that this created the potential
for interference with our safety-of-life systems and the FCC disagreed with that
and thought this was a fair balance," Szabat said.  "The Department of
Transportation will be very keen to look at what structural changes ought to be
made to better realign our statutory requirements and also our duty to protect the
public safety, at the same time recognizing that the FCC is in a difficult
position," Szabat said, citing emerging technologies that used broad swathes of
spectrum:  "We are looking for a way to balance those 2 needs."  Protection of
safety-of-life navigation systems, new Enhanced 911 services, intelligent
transportation systems and automatic identification systems for ships and for
ports must be balanced against robust development of new commercial technologies,
he said.  Szabat said he didn't "underestimate" the challenge the FCC faced in
opening the door for new technologies while protecting existing systems.  At the
same time, he said "the importance of GPS cannot be overstated... This is a
utility that we provide to the world free of charge and we don't expect at the end
of this [interagency] review to be changing that... Our challenge has to be to
establish a spectrum management system that allows new entrants, but not at the
expense of the safety and security of the United States."  One aspect of spectrum
policy covered by the President's executive memorandum was the efficiency of govt.
users.  "There is a great deal we can do within the federal government to
rationalize our use of spectrum and we should certainly be doing that," Szabat
said:  "We are looking at tools that would provide incentives to government
agencies to better use their spectrum."  That doesn't necessarily mean that
incentives that would work in the private sector would translate directly to govt.
users in all cases, he said.  One difference is that in the public sector there
sometimes is a distinction between effective use and efficient use, Szabat said.
As an example, he cited the spectrum used for the President to potentially
activate the nuclear command system in the rare event that it might be needed.
"By any measure of efficiency it's incredibly inefficient to have bands of
spectrum dedicated to something used so infrequently," he said. But regardless of
their infrequent use, that spectrum must be dedicated, so it is an effective use
while not necessarily "efficient" by traditional measures, he said.  Szabat
declined to elaborate on specific tools under consideration by the task force for
more efficient govt. spectrum use, saying it was too early in the process.  One
idea likely to be examined is a thorough examination within and among federal
agencies of potential overlapping or underutilized spectrum uses, he said.  The
FCC already has undertaken updates of spectrum in certain bands, with its Wireless
Bureau, for example, conducting a survey of private wireless and public safety
licensees below 512 MHz, pulling back unused call signs and updating its
database.  Asked about the potential impact of the interference temperature idea
that the FCC's Spectrum Policy Task Force outlined last fall, Szabat
said:  "Our role here is to protect safety-of-life services for Americans that are
on the move.  While we respect the FCC's direction that they have been going in,
one concern about any one-size-fits-all proposals concerning emissions limits is
that engineering and science don't always support that," he said.  The
"interference temperature" concept suggested by the FCC's Spectrum Policy Task
Force would put a ceiling on the noise environment in which receivers would be
required to operate.  To the extent such a ceiling in a particular band wasn't
reached, a user that operated below that limit would gain additional operating
flexibility.  The FCC plans to open a proceeding on interference temperature by
year-end.  In general with such issues, Szabat said:  "This is a question of
philosophy.  Do you walk in with the assumption that new services will not
interfere with existing services and put the burden of proof on incumbents?" he
asked.  "Or do you do the reverse," and stipulate new services not be permitted as
overlays until there is evidence they don't interfere with incumbents, he said. --
{{Mary Greczyn}}

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