FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler appearing before on Capitol Hill before the House Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government said, “Unleashing spectrum would promote competition and provide regulatory certainty to help spur innovation and investments in a vital sector that drives economic growth.”
The total FCC FY 2015 Budget Request is $375,380,313 with an auctions request for $106,200,000 to support spectrum auctions as identified in the 2012 Spectrum Act. This funding would make additional spectrum worth tens of billions of dollars available for commercial licensed services as well as provide nationwide spectrum for unlicensed use and support FirstNet a first responder network.
Chairman Wheeler produced several facts for the Subcommittee such as American firms account for 84 percent of global profits in the computer hardware and software industries, each year the ICT sector generates more than $300 billion in free goods and services not captured by GDP statistics, the mobile apps economy has created more than 750,000 U.S. jobs, since 2009, more than $250 billion has been invested by private companies to upgrade broadband networks, and venture capital financing for internet-specific businesses has doubled in the past four years from $3.5 billion in 2009 to $7.1 billion in 2013.
On March 31, 2014, the FCC took several actions related to increasing spectrum. One order was signed to make more spectrum available for flexible use wireless services, including mobile broadband. This will help wireless companies meet the growing consumer demand for mobile data by enabling faster wireless speeds and more capacity.
In a second announcement on March 31, the FCC issued new rules to expand new Wi-Fi technology that will offer faster speeds of one gigabit per second or more, increase overall capacity, and reduce congestion at Wi-Fi hot spots.
To provide the research needed in the spectrum field, NIST and NTIA signed a Memorandum of Understanding in 2013 to develop a new research unit called the “Center for Advanced Communications” to be located at the Communications Technology Laboratory in Boulder Colorado.
Recently, Kent Rochford was chosen to serve as head of the new Communication Technology Laboratory (CTL) in Boulder which will help the new NIST/NTIA Center promote interdisciplinary research, development, and testing as related to advanced communications.