Boucher: Finding More Wireless Spectrum Key Congressional Priority

House Communications & Internet Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher (D-VA) says finding more spectrum for wireless broadband is one of panel's top priorities. Speaking at the State of the Net Conference, he laid out his legislative agenda for 2010, and spectrum reclamation or sharing led the list.

Chairman Boucher said another priority for the committee was reforming the Universal Service Fund and expanding it to include broadband. He said the committee's discussion draft has been supported by stakeholders on both sides of the fund, contributors and beneficiaries alike. Those include AT&T, Verizon, Qwest, Frontier, and rural carrier trade associations, bridging what he said has been a classic divide between the two sides.

Other legislative priorities are passage of the satellite reauthorization bill and privacy legislation. On the former, he said he House and the Senate have agreed to language on a satellite reauthorization bill. He said that now the issue was finding the right legislative vehicle, but that he expected the legislation to pass and be signed by the president "well before" the Feb. 28 deadline. On the latter, he promised to circulate a discussion draft of legislation to inform consumers what information is being collected about them and how it is used, and then give them control via a "combination of opt-in and opt out opportunities."

Oversight priorities include the Comcast/NBCU merger, which he called "one of the largest media acquisitions proposed in American history," the new National Telecommunications & Information Association and Rural Utilities Service guidelines for broadband stimulus dollars, and the national broadband plan.