The two federal agencies in charge of managing the nation’s spectrum resources are making an effort to more closely work together on a comprehensive approach to spectrum management.
The new Spectrum Coordination Initiative, as the two agencies explain it, “will involve actions by both agencies to strengthen the processes for decision making and information sharing and to work cooperatively to resolve spectrum policy issues.”
NTIA is an executive branch agency which advises the President of the United States on a variety of technology issues, while the FCC is an independent regulatory agency overseen by Congress. While the two agencies have different roles, they both work on spectrum management issues and administer certain, similar programs related to connectivity, closing the digital divide and tracking broadband deployment — the FCC, for instance, distributes Universal Service Fund dollars and connectivity subsidies, while NTIA also runs multiple broadband grant programs. Occasionally they have taken clashing views on spectrum issues, including the FCC’s decision in 2020 to permit changes to Ligado Networks’ licenses in order to allow terrestrial operations, which NTIA opposed on behald of Department of Defense users and even asked the FCC to reconsider after the fact.
“Now more than ever we need a whole-of-government approach to spectrum policy,” said
Rosenworcel. “Over the past few years we’ve seen the cost of not having one—and we need a non-stop effort to fix that.” She went on to say that the effort will “revitalize the interagency coordination process so that it once again is able to produce results for consumers and the economy.”
The increased inter-agency coordination includes bumping up the number of meetings between the FCC chair and the assistant secretary of NTIA, so that they are holding formal monthly meetings. The existing framework only requires twice-yearly meetings between them.
It also includes an update of the current Memorandum of Understanding between the two agencies “to address gaps in government coordination and to better reflect today’s spectrum opportunities and challenges.” The current MOU has been in place for nearly two decades, the agencies noted.
In addition, the two agencies said they were renewing their respective efforts to collaboratively develop a national spectrum policy, and that they were going to also revamp their technical collaboration to both “work cooperatively to develop processes for spectrum engineering compatibility analysis” and to increase proactive technical information between their agencies and across the federal government. The start of that, they added, is the FCC participating as an observer in NTIA’s ommerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee, and NTIA likewise participating as an observer in the FCC’s Technological Advisory Council and its Communications Security, Reliability, and Interoperability Council.
“The FCC and NTIA have an opportunity … to build a common vision for spectrum
management and coordination that serves federal users, private actors, and the American
people,” said Assistant Secretary Alan Davidson.
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