Wireless industry problems addressed at committee luncheon (9359)

Steve Berry, senior vice president for Government Affairs at the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (CTIA), spoke recently at a luncheon hosted by the Federal Communications Bar Association’s (FCBA) Young Lawyers Committee in Washington DC. He stated that “one of the more difficult problems that the wireless industry is facing now … is spectrum management.”

He addressed the needs of the wireless industry for Third Generation (3G) services, which are intended to bring broadband Internet access to portable devices. He said that “we don’t have a spectrum management process that is designed for major movements of spectrum.”

He added that “the NTIA and FCC are really good at managing that spectrum that they have,” but not at re-assigning spectrum. He concluded that “our spectrum management process is broken; it is not working, for major realignments.” He suggested that only the Congress will be able to address spectrum for 3G services.

Berry also offered some recommendations for procedural and structural reform, such as creating an interagency senior advisory group to facilitate decision making on controversial spectrum matters, developing a rolling long term spectrum planning process, and creating an independent review mechanism similar to the Base Realignment and Closure Commission.