Strickling: Government Spectrum Holdings Are Limited

National Telecommunication and Information Administration chief Lawrence Strickling told the House Commerce Committee that the US government doesn't have a huge swath of underused wireless spectrum to auction to mobile carriers, although agencies are working to identify spectrum bands that can be sold.

Several lawmakers, pointing to a predicted spectrum shortage for mobile broadband providers, called for the NTIA to move ahead quicker with efforts to identity government spectrum that could be converted to commercial use. Strickling disputed lawmaker assertions that some federal agencies are inefficiently using their spectrum. "Compared to commercial services, federal agencies do not have a lot of spectrum in the prime bands," said Strickling. Federal agencies have exclusive use of only 18 percent of the "prime" spectrum between 225MHz and 3.7GHz, while commercial and other users, have exclusive control of about 30 percent, Strickling said. The remaining spectrum is shared between federal agencies and other users, he said.