NTIA Releases Report Furthering President’s Commitment to Identifying Spectrum for Commercial Wireless Broadband

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) released an important technical report developed by engineers in NTIA’s Office of Spectrum Management (OSM) and Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS) that provides the technical analysis supporting spectrum sharing in the 3550-3650 MHz band. It serves as a concrete example of our efforts to make more spectrum available to meet the exploding demand for commercial wireless broadband while protecting mission-critical Federal systems.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in April approved an innovative regulatory framework that would enable commercial access to 150 megahertz of spectrum in the 3.5 GHz band. This framework grew out of NTIA’s 2010 Fast Track Report, which identified the 3.5 GHz band as a possible candidate for spectrum sharing to fulfill the President’s goal of identifying 500 megahertz of additional spectrum for commercial wireless broadband by 2020. Federal agencies are currently using this spectrum to operate military shipborne, ground-based, and airborne radar systems.