FCC Chairman: Government Airwaves Could Be Answer To Spectrum Crunch

The US could consider addressing the country’s shortage of airwaves for mobile telecommunications by re-licensing government-held spectrum for commercial use, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission said. “We have to do things like look harder and more carefully at government spectrum,” and look for “innovative ways” to share airwaves between the private and public sector, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said at a cable industry conference in Boston.

Chairman Genachowski said the spectrum crunch was the positive result of an entrepreneurial economy that resulted in the popularity of bandwidth-intensive applications available to consumers. Mobile congestion is “in the category of problems you want to have,” he said, adding that foreign regulators are increasingly “envious of what they see in the U.S. in terms of broadband innovation.” The FCC chairman also pointed to new efforts by cable operators to introduce usage-based pricing as a “completely appropriate” step to meet consumers’ needs.