Inside the FCC's spectrum revolution (and its problems)

The National broadband Plan calls for freeing up 300MHz starting just below the UHF zone (300MHz to 3GHz) to be made "newly available for mobile use within five years." On top of that, the Plan wants to open up 20MHz of licensed space in the little-known 2.3GHz Wireless Communications Service (WCS) band for mobile broadband use.

The FCC is setting a tough agenda for itself with these benchmarks -- but they pale in comparison to the revolution in spectrum philosophy for which the FCC is calling. What the Commission proposes is nothing short of a fundamental restructuring of how the government oversees spectrum ownership and use. And the first test of the new approach will not come in the TV bands, but in that obscure little WCS zone -- its fate being watched by Comcast, AT&T, Sirius XM satellite radio, and the entire auto industry. Historically, the way that the FCC has allocated spectrum is to apportion some license area and designate its use for one purpose. Now the Commission calls this system outmoded.

The pace of technological change (or the emergence of "disruptive technologies," in the FCC's words) means that new uses for old spectrum are constantly being uncovered, while much presently owned bandwidth is underutilized. So the agency is seeking a much more fluid system of spectrum management that allows both government and industry to reconsider the uses of any band much more quickly—at present your garden variety re-allocation takes from six to thirteen years. To speed up this process, the NBP proposes some changes.