Pandemic Reveals Need to Make Airwaves More Resilient

The pandemic has put the spotlight on the challenges facing the nation’s wireless communications infrastructure. As patients and doctors use telemedicine; children and teachers use distance learning; and parents telework from home, our spectrum resources are being stretched to the limit. If we can’t create more spectrum, we must use it more efficiently. Just as highways into a city may have heavy traffic only during the rush hours but are largely open the remaining twenty hours a day, there may be opportunities for commercial and government organizations to share the mid-range spectrum. The challenge is achieving the right balance, so that the government has seamless first rights to protect our national security while making more frequencies available for private and commercial use during downtimes. Of course, in emergencies, this can work both ways. If the government needs more bandwidth, say for national security or disaster relief, an effective spectrum sharing plan will give it access to airwaves typically reserved for commercial use. But as we’re seeing now with work at home, ordering groceries online, and more, shifting bandwidth to commercial use can also be part of the solution during an emergency. In addition to private companies like mobile device manufacturers and telecommunications networks, government organizations are looking into the best ways to make spectrum sharing a reality. This includes the Federal Communications Commission and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. 

My key recommendation is to create a public-private partnership with spectrum stakeholders such as national regulators, federal agency, industry, local governments, research institutions, and consumer advocates. This partnership will facilitate governance, stakeholder synchronization, joint business analysis, and mutual trust and commitment. It would also serve as a venue to reach out to manufacturers and regulators to develop automated solutions that would enable sharing across government and industry.

[Yosry A. Barsoum is vice president and director of the Homeland Security Systems Engineering and Development Institute at MITRE, a not-for-profit company that operates federally funded R&D centers]