Blair Levin: Spectrum Key to Internet Buildout

Blair Levin, who is leading the Federal Communications Commission's National Broadband Plan effort, said Wednesday current spectrum holders will have to justify their holdings or risk losing some to make room for suppliers of high-speed Internet. Companies and agencies that hold licenses to frequencies tend to want to hang onto it, but Levin warned that licensees should be prepared to justify their ownership. "I want you to be worried," he told telecom executives and lobbyists at their regular Udwin Breakfast Group. "I'm worried. My way of coping with it is to make other people worry. That's actually the intellectual process we should go through." Levin said there's a consensus in the FCC's public record the making more spectrum available for wireless broadband is a necessity. It isn't clear where the needed airwaves will surface. The US government, namely the Defense Department, holds a sizable chunk. Industry insiders say the government's airwaves could be more efficiently used in the private sector. Legislation is pending in Congress to catalogue how all the wireless airwaves are being used.