NTIA Releases Interim Progress Report on Administration’s Plan to Free Up More Spectrum

NTIA released the Fourth Interim Progress Report on the Obama Administration’s initiative to identify and make available 500 megahertz of federal and non-federal spectrum for commercial wireless broadband use by 2020.

This report also includes a plan for federal agencies to conduct quantitative assessments of their actual spectrum usage in 960 megahertz of additional spectrum, as directed in President Barack Obama’s June 2013 Memorandum. America’s future competitiveness and global technology leadership depend on access to radio spectrum -- the lifeblood of smartphones, tablets, and other data-hungry wireless devices.

The key accomplishments in the 2013 fiscal year include the following:

• NTIA’s Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee concluded its groundbreaking work to explore relocation alternatives and spectrum sharing arrangements between federal agencies and commercial mobile broadband systems in the 1695-1710 MHz and 1755-1850 MHz bands.
• NTIA released regulations and guidance implementing changes to the Commercial Spectrum Enhancement Act (CSEA) that provide eligible federal agencies incentives and financial assistance to facilitate the transition of the reallocated federal bands that the FCC will auction.
• NTIA published an initial assessment on spectrum-sharing technologies and the risk to federal users if Unlicensed-National Information Infrastructure (U-NII) devices were authorized to operate in the 5350-5470 MHz and 5850-5925 MHz bands (5 GHz).
• NTIA, in collaboration with other federal agencies, developed the plan for federal agencies to provide quantitative assessments of their usage of spectrum in selected frequency bands.
• The FCC initiated or concluded rulemaking proceedings for several spectrum bands and services, including H Block and AWS-4 services.