Brookings: Telecom and Transportation Should Be Focus of Infrastructure Investments

By combining better public information, market mechanisms and smarter systems of subsidization, the government can play a positive role in funding infrastructure investments in telecommunications, according to three reports released Friday by the Brookings Institution. The papers are part of a Brookings Institution initiative promoting investments in infrastructure - both physical, transportation investments, as well as new ways to spur improvements in the telecommunications infrastructure. In "Bringing Broadband to Unserved Communities," Jon Peha, an engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University, proposed that the federal government provide incentives for companies to build broadband in rural areas by holding a "reverse auction" whereby carriers would bid to provide broadband in a particular areas at the lowest possible cost. "Reverse auctions" - so called because bidders seek to be paid to accomplish a burden rather than paying to obtain a benefit - have previously been proposed for rural telecommunications. They have been opposed by rural telephone companies, which are currently paid based upon their expenses - and which are generally quite high. Peha also suggested that the obligations purchased in a reverse auction be fully tradable. "The idea is an extension of pollution permits - one of the greatest innovations in pollution reduction," Peha wrote in his paper. "By giving individual polluters greater flexibility, tradable permits allow an industry as a whole to meet specific objectives for pollution reduction at the minimum cost." In "The Untapped Promise of Wireless Spectrum," Philip Weiser, a professor of law and telecommunications at the University of Colorado, makes a three-fold proposal for tapping the promise of wireless communications. First, Weiser wants the FCC to create "an easily accessible and transparent database that identifies (and exposes) all licensed bands of spectrum, a contact person for the licensee, and stated terms for the opportunity to lease access" to the spectrum. This would be accompanied by policy changes encouraging private parties to inform the agency when spectrum holders are making poor use of their spectrum. Second, Weiser urges "liberating the UHF broadband spectrum," or those portions of the Ultra-High Frequency television band currently occupied by television broadcasters. Weiser's proposal appears to be at odds with Peha's "white spaces" proposal in that Weiser urges that broadcasters be effectively cleared from their spaces on the spectrum, rather than finding a way for broadband-capable devices to co-exist with digital television broadcasters. Third, Weiser wants to recharter the FCC so that it will be less susceptible to "the art of spectrum lobbying," or the easily ability for incumbents to use the agency as an anti-competitive tool against new market entrants.