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98–660 2016

IMPROVING FEDERAL SPECTRUM SYSTEMS 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON COMMUNICATIONS AND 

TECHNOLOGY 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND 

COMMERCE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

OCTOBER 7, 2015 

Serial No. 114–84 

( 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce 

energycommerce.house.gov 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE 

FRED UPTON, Michigan 

Chairman 

JOE BARTON, Texas 

Chairman Emeritus 

ED WHITFIELD, Kentucky 

JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois 

JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania 

GREG WALDEN, Oregon 

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania 

MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas 

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee 

Vice Chairman 

STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana 

ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio 

CATHY MCMORRIS RODGERS, Washington 

GREGG HARPER, Mississippi 

LEONARD LANCE, New Jersey 

BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky 

PETE OLSON, Texas 

DAVID B. MCKINLEY, West Virginia 

MIKE POMPEO, Kansas 

ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois 

H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia 

GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida 

BILL JOHNSON, Missouri 

BILLY LONG, Missouri 

RENEE L. ELLMERS, North Carolina 

LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana 

BILL FLORES, Texas 

SUSAN W. BROOKS, Indiana 

MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma 

RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina 

CHRIS COLLINS, New York 

KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota 

FRANK PALLONE, JR., New Jersey 

Ranking Member 

BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois 

ANNA G. ESHOO, California 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

GENE GREEN, Texas 

DIANA DEGETTE, Colorado 

LOIS CAPPS, California 

MICHAEL F. DOYLE, Pennsylvania 

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois 

G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina 

DORIS O. MATSUI, California 

KATHY CASTOR, Florida 

JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California 

PETER WELCH, Vermont 

BEN RAY LUJA ́ N, New Mexico 

PAUL TONKO, New York 

JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky 

YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York 

DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa 

KURT SCHRADER, Oregon 

JOSEPH P. KENNEDY, III, Massachusetts 

TONY CA ́ RDENAS, California 

(III) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON COMMUNICATIONS AND TECHNOLOGY

GREG WALDEN, Oregon 

Chairman 

ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio 

Vice Chairman 

JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois 

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee 

STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana 

LEONARD LANCE, New Jersey 

BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky 

PETE OLSON, Texas 

MIKE POMPEO, Kansas 

ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois 

GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida 

BILL JOHNSON, Missouri 

BILLY LONG, Missouri 

RENEE L. ELLMERS, North Carolina 

CHRIS COLLINS, New York 

KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota 

JOE BARTON, Texas 

FRED UPTON, Michigan (ex officio) 

ANNA G. ESHOO, California 

Ranking Member 

MICHAEL F. DOYLE, Pennsylvania 

PETER WELCH, Vermont 

JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky 

YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York 

DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa 

BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois 

DIANA DEGETTE, Colorado 

G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina 

DORIS O. MATSUI, California 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California 

BEN RAY LUJA ́ N, New Mexico 

FRANK PALLONE, JR., New Jersey (ex 

officio) 

(V) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hon. Greg Walden, a Representative in Congress from the State of Oregon, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 1 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 3 

Hon. Anna G. Eshoo, a Representative in Congress from the State of California, opening statement .................................................................................... 4 

Hon. Marsha Blackburn, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

Tennessee, opening statement ............................................................................ 5 

Hon. Frank Pallone, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the State of 

New Jersey, opening statement .......................................................................... 6 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 7 

Hon. Fred Upton, a Representative in Congress from the State of Michigan, 

prepared statement .............................................................................................. 60 

WITNESSES

Phillip Berenbroick, Counsel, Government Affairs, Public Knowledge ............... 9 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 11 

Dennis A. Roberson, Vice Provost, Research Professor in Computer Science, 

Illinois Institute of Technology ........................................................................... 16 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 18 

Jeffrey H. Reed, Willis G. Worcester Professor of Electrical and Computer 

Engineering, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University .................. 26 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 28 

(1) 

IMPROVING FEDERAL SPECTRUM SYSTEMS 

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2015 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON COMMUNICATIONS AND TECHNOLOGY, COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE, Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:15 a.m., in Room 

2322 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Greg Walden [chairman 

of the subcommittee] presiding. 

Members present: Representatives Walden, Latta, Shimkus, 

Blackburn, Lance, Guthrie, Olson, Bilirakis, Johnson, Long, 

Ellmers, Collins, Cramer, Eshoo, Welch, Clarke, Loebsack, 

DeGette, Butterfield, and Pallone (ex officio). 

Staff present: Ray Baum, Legislative Associate, Energy and 

Power; Rebecca Card, Assistant Press Secretary; Andy Duberstein, 

Deputy Press Secretary; Gene Fullano, Detailee, Subcommittee on 

Communications and Technology; Kelsey Guyselman, Counsel, Subcommittee on Communications and Technology; Grace Koh, Counsel, Subcommittee on Communications and Technology; Tim 

Pataki, Professional Staff Member; David Redl, Counsel, Subcommittee on Communications and Technology; Charlotte 

Savercool, Legislative Clerk; Greg Watson, Legislative Clerk; Jeff 

Carroll, Staff Director; David Goldman, Chief Counsel, Subcommittee on Communications and Technology; Jerry Leverich, 

Counsel; Lori Maarbjerg, Detailee, FCC; and Ryan Skukowski, Policy Analyst. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. GREG WALDEN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OREGON 

Mr. WALDEN. I am going to call to order the subcommittee on 

Communications and Technology and our hearing on improving 

federal spectrum systems. 

During my time as chairman of this subcommittee, one of the 

most important topics that we have addressed is spectrum, how to 

better use it, how to allocate it and how to value it. And through 

our work, we found bipartisan agreement on many of the policy 

issues around this valuable resource. 

Three-and-a-half years ago, the Congress passed the Middle 

Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act that included the spectrum 

incentive auction provisions the subcommittee brought to the table. 

And it properly conducted the upcoming broadband incentive auction and will successfully free up a wide swath of valuable spectrum for new purposes. But with worldwide demand for wireless 

connectivity expected to grow 400 percent in the next 3 years, and 

2 

given that the U.S. Government is nowhere close to meeting the 

goal of repurposing 500 megahertz as called for in the national 

broadband plan, it is clear we have more work to do. 

One way we can continue to free up additional spectrum is 

through the use of the Commercial Spectrum Enhancement Act. 

Under the SCEA, commercial providers bear the cost of moving federal incumbents to clear spectrum. Given the budgetary pressures 

facing the country and the significant challenges our defense agencies face as a result of fiscal belt tightening, I think we have an 

opportunity to work together to optimize the value of under utilized 

spectrum and upgrade equipment and services used by the federal 

agencies. 

Although there are many hurdles to overcome in clearing and reallocating federally-held spectrum, we have proven it can be done 

with great success. The best example of this is the AWS–3 Auction 

which made 65 megahertz of spectrum available for wireless 

broadband and raised more than $44 billion. 

The AWS–3 Auction worked. Now let us move forward by giving 

agencies new tools that will allow them to become more innovative 

and efficient in how they use spectrum. 

Under current law, federal spectrum users receive compensation 

for relocating spectrum-based systems and can upgrade equipment 

to further their mission. Carriers get the opportunity to purchase 

a resource that they desperately need and above all, consumers 

love better mobile broadband service allowing them to access the 

services and information they so clearly want and need. 

Building on this successful process, today we are considering two 

pieces of legislation that will help move America forward. First, 

Representatives Guthrie and Matsui’s Federal Spectrum Incentive 

Act allows interested agencies to take part in an incentive auction 

where they are compensated for relinquishing spectrum through 

auction proceeds. Currently, agencies are only allowed to be reimbursed for sharing or relocating. This legislation would actually 

incentivize agencies to take a hard look at their spectrum use and 

to give up the spectrum that they do not need. 

We are also considering a bill that would require the FCC to report back to Congress with draft auction plans. Now this legislation 

is intended to help establish a more consistent and predictable supply of spectrum going forward through a formal process between 

the Congress, the FCC, and NTIA and other agencies. 

While the speed of innovation and technology is blindingly fast, 

the time line for reallocating spectrum often is reflective of the tangled bureaucracy of government, and the fiscal and operational restraints on agencies. This conflict illustrates the urgent need for 

legislation to reform the federal system, bring about predictable 

and transparent auction rules, and provide clear incentives for 

agencies to free up under used or unneeded spectrum. 

We can move forward on this front while at the same time making sure agencies who rely on the resource for mission-critical operations have the most modern communications technology in the 

world. 

I would like to thank Ranking Member Pallone and Representative Clarke for working with us on this bipartisan discussion draft 

and I look forward to our continued collaboration with all the memVerDate Nov 24 2008 11:39 Mar 02, 2016 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\MY DOCS\HEARINGS 114\114-84 CHRIS
3 

bers of the subcommittee. Working together we can provide the 

framework and incentives to increase efficiency, upgrade government systems, and make more spectrum available to meet our 

country’s wireless broadband needs and raise a little money for the 

taxpayers. With that, I will yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Latta. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Latta follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. GREG WALDEN

During my time as chairman of this subcommittee, one of the most important topics that we’ve addressed is spectrum—how to better use it, how to allocate it, how 

to value it. And through our work we’ve found bipartisan agreement on many of the 

policy issues around this valuable resource. 

Three-and-a-half years ago Congress passed the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job 

Creation Act, including the spectrum incentive auction provisions this subcommittee 

brought to the table. If properly conducted, the upcoming broadband incentive auction will successfully free up a wide swath of valuable spectrum for new purposes. 

But with world-wide demand for wireless connectivity expected to grow 400 percent 

in the next three years, and given that the U.S. government is nowhere close to 

meeting the goal of repurposing 500 MHz as called for in the National Broadband 

Plan, it’s clear we have more work to do. 

One way we can continue to free up additional spectrum is through use of the 

Commercial Spectrum Enhancement Act. Under the CSEA, commercial providers 

bear the cost of moving federal incumbents to clear spectrum. Given the budgetary 

pressures facing the country—and the significant challenges our defense agencies 

face as a result of fiscal belt-tightening—we have an opportunity to work together 

to optimize the value of underutilized spectrum and upgrade equipment and services used by federal agencies. 

Though there are many hurdles to overcome in clearing and reallocating federally 

held spectrum, we have proven it can be done to great success. The best example 

of this process is the recent AWS–3 auction, which made 65 MHz of spectrum available for wireless broadband and raised more than $44 billion. 

The AWS–3 auction worked. Now, let us move forward by giving agencies new 

tools that will allow them to become more innovative and efficient in how they use 

spectrum. 

Under current law, federal spectrum users receive compensation for relocating 

spectrum-based systems and can upgrade equipment to further their mission. Carriers get the opportunity to purchase a resource they desperately need, and above 

all, consumers will have better mobile broadband service, allowing them to access 

the services and information they so clearly want and need. 

Building on this successful process, today we are reviewing two pieces of legislation that will help move America forward. First, Representatives Guthrie and Matsui’s Federal Spectrum Incentive Act allows interested agencies to take part in an 

incentive auction where they are compensated for relinquishing spectrum through 

auction proceeds. Currently, agencies are only allowed to be reimbursed for sharing 

or relocating—this legislation would incentivize agencies to take a hard look at their 

spectrum use and to give up the spectrum they don’t need. 

We’re also reviewing a bill that would require the FCC to report back to Congress 

with draft auction plans going forward. This legislation is intended to help establish 

a more consistent and predictable supply of spectrum going forward through a formal process between the Congress, the FCC, the NTIA, and other agencies. 

While the speed of innovation in technology is blindingly fast, the timeline for reallocating spectrum often is reflective of the tangled bureaucracy of government, and 

the fiscal and operational restraints on agencies. This conflict illustrates the urgent 

need for legislation to reform the federal system, bring about predictable and transparent auction rules, and provide clear incentives for agencies to free up underused, 

or unneeded, spectrum. 

We can move forward on this front while at the same time making sure agencies 

who rely on the resource for mission-critical operations have the most modern communications technology available. 

I’d like to thank Ranking Member Pallone and Representative Clarke for working 

with us on this bipartisan discussion draft and I look forward to our continued collaboration. Working together we can provide the framework and incentives to increase efficiency, upgrade government systems, and make spectrum available to 

meet our country’s wireless broadband demand. 

4 

Mr. LATTA. Well, I thank the chairman for yielding and this subcommittee has long recognized a demand for wireless spectrum capacity as technologically advanced products and devices are becoming an integral part of our everyday lives. 

In 2014, the number of mobile-connected devices exceeded the 

world’s population. It is clear that in order to accommodate advanced mobile innovation we must examine every avenue to expand access to spectrum. That is why we are here today. The Federal Government is the largest single user of spectrum. Therefore, 

we have the challenging opportunity to make spectrum currently 

used by federal agencies available for commercial use. 

The discussion draft and Mr. Guthrie’s and Ms. Matsui’s bill before us today will begin the process to evaluate approaches that efficiently utilize spectrum. I am confident that industry experts and 

federal agencies can find a way to optimize the cyber real estate 

to the interest of all parties. 

In order to remain the world’s leading innovator and ensure consumer demands, we must work together to utilize spectrum more 

efficiently. 

Mr. Chairman, I look forward to hearing from today’s witnesses 

and I yield back. 

Mr. WALDEN. The gentleman yields back. Now at this time, the 

chair recognizes the ranking member from California, Ms. Eshoo, 

for opening comments. Good morning. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ANNA G. ESHOO, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 

Ms. ESHOO. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. Thank you and welcome to the witnesses. We appreciate it. 

Mr. Chairman and members, I think it is important to take a 

moment to consider that Americans use 11.1 billion megabits of 

mobile data every day. That is an astounding number. That is 

equivalent to about 22.2 million hours of streaming standard definition moves. 

As our dependence on smart phones and tablets for mobile video 

and other bandwidths’ intensive applications grow, so will our need 

for more licensed and unlicensed spectrum. So we need a plan; a 

spectrum pipeline for the future that fits with consumer expectations and also ensures a seamless user experience. 

According to a 2012 GAO report, federal agencies have exclusive 

access to about 18 percent of the most highly valued spectrum. A 

far larger percentage of spectrum is shared between federal and 

nonfederal users. Increasing the efficiency of how more than 60 federal agencies and departments use over 240,000 frequency assignments, obviously, it is not an easy task. But I think it is one that 

our subcommittee should tackle and will tackle. We did it before 

and we are going to have it do it again. 

The Spectrum Pipeline Act of 2015 is an important step in this 

process. As the chairman said, building on the success of the AWS– 

3 Auction, the draft under discussion today calls for a plan for the 

reallocation or sharing of spectrum bands held by federal agencies 

and a time line, which is very important, for bringing the spectrum 

to auction. 

5 

Recognizing that federal agencies operate very differently than 

commercial wireless providers, we also need a plan to incent federal agency participation. And that is why I am pleased to support 

Representatives Guthrie and Matsui’s legislation as an original cosponsor because the bill directs itself toward accomplishing that. It 

will get federal agencies a direct financial incentive. Money always 

does it, almost always anyway—yes, it is the magic ingredient. It 

gives them the incentive to either terminate or share with other 

federal agencies their existing spectrum. 

More than three years ago, our subcommittee established a bipartisan working group to examine how the Federal Government 

can use the nation’s airways more efficiently. We put a lot of time 

into it and it was time well spent. It was time well spent. So in 

pursuit of our shared goals and this is, I believe, a real bipartisan 

effort to deliver fast, reliable, wireless broadband service to all 

Americans. I want to thank the chairman and members of the subcommittee that have really put in time and thought, not only to the 

bills that we are going to talk about today, but the efforts that really got us to step up and prove that we can do it. 

So with that, Mr. Chairman, I will yield back the balance of my 

time. 

Mr. WALDEN. The gentlelady yields back the balance of her time. 

The chair recognizes the gentlelady from Tennessee, Ms. 

Blackburn, for 5 minutes. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MARSHA BLACKBURN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TENNESSEE 

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to say thank 

you to the witnesses. We appreciate that you are taking the time 

and being here. It is an important topic. As you all know, it is not 

the first hearing that we have done on this issue. 

We know that spectrum is the lifeblood of the wireless industry. 

It is essential to connectivity. Ms. Eshoo was just talking about the 

amount of utilization of spectrum and the airways that are there. 

One of the things we hear from our constituents is the importance of this as an education and economic development issue and 

how the access is incredibly important to them and having the 

Spectrum Pipeline Act and Incentive of 2015 is something that is 

a good step. It is going to move us forward. If we are all reading 

the CTIA report properly, then we see we need to get to work on 

making certain that the 350 additional megahertz that are needed 

by 2019 are in the pipeline and that is what the usage is going to 

demand. So we do have some work to do. And at this time, I yield 

the balance of the time to Mr. Guthrie. 

Mr. GUTHRIE. Thank you. Thank you for yielding. I appreciate 

that and I am pleased to speak in support of 1641. It is a bipartisan bill that I reintroduced this year with my colleague from California, Ms. Matsui, Congresswoman Matsui. I always appreciate 

working together as co-chairs of the Congressional Spectrum Caucus and we hope to see this bill advance. 

I said before and I know my friend, Mr. Berenbroick, is from 

Radcliff in my district and I said before when I went around the 

2nd District of Kentucky I never had a platform or sat up and said 

6 

send me to Washington and I will deliver you spectrum. It was 

something that I didn’t know I would get involved in until I got 

here. But how important it is and it is important to the 2nd District of Kentucky and people out in the country because whether 

you use it to browse apps or news articles on your mobile phone 

or you are a first responder just trying to get resources for an 

emergency situation, we all rely on it. And while we can’t see spectrum, we know it is a limited critical resource for nearly every aspect of our daily lives. 

And in January, we saw a huge success with FCC’s Advanced 

Wireless Services Spectrum Auction raising an unprecedented 

$44.8 billion. And I am hopeful we can achieve similar success. 

I want to thank Chairman Walden for bringing this important 

legislation before the subcommittee and I thank my friend, Congresswoman Matsui. 

One of the other great things about being on the Spectrum Caucus is making a great friend with Congresswoman Matsui and 

working together with her. So I appreciate it and I yield back my 

time. 

Mr. WALDEN. The gentleman yields back the balance of time. The 

chair recognizes the ranking member of the full committee, Mr. 

Pallone, for an opening statement. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK PALLONE, JR., A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY 

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity to continue this subcommittee’s conversation on spectrum 

policy. Spectrum policy is a bipartisan issue and I am proud of the 

bipartisan approach this subcommittee has been taking. 

As I have noted before, we are witnessing a mobile revolution. 

The consumers’ insatiable demand for wireless service is a critical 

engine driving our economy. And this engine is powered by spectrum. Fortunately, Congress, the FCC, and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, have been hard 

at work to meet this demand and keep the mobile economy moving 

forward. With support from this subcommittee, the FCC completed 

a record-shattering auction earlier this year that raised over $40 

billion and we are all hoping for success in the upcoming incentive 

auction which was authorized by a law that came out of this subcommittee. 

So today, we will continue to drive the effort to free more spectrum. We are taking the next step to make sure consumers continue to reap the benefits of the mobile economy. Together, the pair 

of bills we are looking at this morning have the potential to establish a spectrum pipeline to meet consumer needs well into the future. 

Like the broadcast incentive auction, the Matsui-Guthrie bill 

would encourage federal users to either vacate their current spectrum or relocate to another band in exchange for a percentage of 

the auction proceeds. This bill demonstrates that innovative thinking in the tech sector is not confined to the private sector. 

I am also pleased for examining the bipartisan discussion draft 

offered by Representatives Clarke and Walden. This is an imporVerDate Nov 24 2008 11:39 Mar 02, 2016 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\MY DOCS\HEARINGS 114\114-84 CHRIS
7 

tant effort that would require agencies to continue to think about 

additional innovative ways to expand commercial broadband. I 

want to commend Representative Clarke who, of course, is relatively new to the committee for her immediate and keen understanding of the importance of addressing spectrum. 

Together, these bills are the first step in authorizing new auctions that can help serve the skyrocketing mobile needs of consumers. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Pallone follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK PALLONE, JR. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity to continue this subcommittee’s conversation on spectrum policy. Spectrum policy is a bipartisan issue 

and I am proud of the bipartisan approach this subcommittee has been taking. 

As I’ve noted before, we are witnessing a mobile revolution. The consumer’s insatiable demand for wireless services is a critical engine driving our economy. And 

this engine is powered by spectrum. 

Fortunately, Congress, the Federal Communications Commission, and the National Telecommunication and Information Administration have been hard at work 

to meet this demand and keep the mobile economy moving forward. With support 

from this subcommittee, the FCC completed a record-shattering auction earlier this 

year that raised over $40 billion. And we are all hoping for success in the upcoming 

incentive auction, which was authorized by a law that came out of this subcommittee. 

So today we will continue to drive the effort to free more spectrum. We are taking 

the next step to make sure consumers continue to reap the benefits of the mobile 

economy. Together, the pair of bills we are looking at this morning have the potential to establish a spectrum pipeline to meet consumer needs well into the future. 

Like the broadcast incentive auction, the Matsui-Guthrie bill would encourage federal users to either vacate their current spectrum or relocate to another band in exchange for a percentage of the auction proceeds. This bill demonstrates that innovative thinking in the tech sector is not confined to the private sector. 

I’m also pleased we are examining a bipartisan discussion draft offered by Representatives Clarke and Walden. This is an important effort that would require our 

agencies to continue to think about additional innovative ways to expand commercial broadband. I want to commend Representative Clarke, who is new to the Energy and Commerce Committee, for her immediate and keen understanding of the 

importance of addressing spectrum. 

Together these bills are the first step in authorizing new auctions that can help 

serve the skyrocketing mobile needs of consumers. 

Again, thank you, Mr. Chairman for keeping this subcommittee focused on spectrum in a bipartisan way. I’d like to yield the remainder of my time to Ms. Clarke. 

Mr. PALLONE. Again, thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ms. Eshoo 

for keeping this subcommittee focused on spectrum in a bipartisan 

way and I would like to yield the remainder of my time to Ms. 

Clarke. 

Ms. CLARKE. Thank you, Ranking Member Pallone. And I also 

would like to extend my gratitude to the chairman for this bipartisan effort. I am thrilled that we are discussing this bipartisan 

draft of the Spectrum Pipeline Act of 2015. 

As everyone knows here, the future is wireless. Our lives are 

more connected every day. It is not just our phones or our tablets. 

We are moving to a world of connected cars, connected homes, connected lives. I can see it clearly when I go home to Brooklyn. We 

have become one of the most tech savvy places in the country. Everyone has a device or two in their hands and the innovations coming out of start ups in my district are mobile and data hungry. 

It is our job to make sure that these consumers and these 

innovators have the spectrum they need. That is why I am proud 

8 

of our efforts today, that bipartisan discussion draft that takes necessary first steps toward creating a spectrum pipeline to meet that 

challenge. I made sure to develop this bill to ensure that will have 

a steady flow of licensed and unlicensed spectrum to meet consumer needs and demands. 

I hope that this draft helps get the conversation started. I look 

forward to hearing ideas from my colleagues and our witnesses on 

how to improve the bill as we move forward. I thank you and I look 

forward to our continued bipartisan effort on this important issue. 

I yield back to the ranking member. 

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield the remainder 

of my time to Ms. Matsui. 

Ms. MATSUI. Thank you very much for yielding me time, Mr. 

Pallone. 

Today, the subcommittee’s focus is on how to improve the efficiency of federal spectrum users and free up spectrum for innovation and commercial use. The success of the AWS–3 Auction earlier 

this year highlighted the incredible demand for spectrum in the 

marketplace. Spectrum is our nation’s invisible infrastructure of 

the 21st century. Making more spectrum available is essential to 

meet the demands of American consumers and to keep the United 

States as a world leader in the wireless economy. 

The Federal Spectrum Incentive Act, a bill that I am sponsoring 

with Congressman Guthrie, Chairman Walden, and Ranking Member Eshoo, is one of the proposals we are examining today. Our bipartisan bill creates a new approach to spectrum management by 

offering new incentives for federal users to relinquish or share 

spectrum. It would create the first ever incentive auction for federal agencies and allow federal spectrum users to share in the revenues from the auction. 

Last Congress, the committee reported the bill with strong bipartisan support. We need to continue to support additional solutions 

to put more spectrum in the pipeline. I look forward to working 

with all my colleagues to see this legislation become law. I yield 

back. Thank you. 

Mr. WALDEN. Thank you. The gentleman yields back the balance 

of his time, and the gentlelady yields back and I thank the 

gentlelady, both, all my colleagues for their work on these bills. 

We are going to go now to our witnesses. We want to really 

thank you all for coming. I have read your testimony. It is most 

insightful and helpful and we look forward to your sharing it with 

everyone and so we will start with Phillip Berenbroick, the counsel 

for Government Affairs at Public Knowledge. Sir, we are delighted 

to have you here. Pull that microphone fairly close. Make sure the 

light is lit and the floor is yours. 

9 

STATEMENTS OF PHILLIP BERENBROICK, COUNSEL, GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS, PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE; JEFFREY H. REED, 

WILLIS G. WORCESTER PROFESSOR OF ELECTRICAL AND 

COMPUTER ENGINEERING, VIRGINIA POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE AND STATE UNIVERSITY; AND DENNIS A. ROBERSON, 

VICE PROVOST, RESEARCH PROFESSOR IN COMPUTER 

SCIENCE, ILLINOIS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY 

STATEMENT OF PHILLIP BERENBROICK 

Mr. BERENBROICK. Good morning, Chairman Walden, Ranking 

Member Eshoo, Ranking Member Pallone, and members of the subcommittee. I am Phillip Berenbroick, counsel for Government Affairs at Public Knowledge, a public interest nonprofit dedicated to 

the openness of the internet and open access for consumers to lawful content and innovative technology. 

I will make two key points. First, it is critical for Congress to lay 

the groundwork for consistent, robust pipeline of spectrum. As 

Chairman Walden and Ranking Member Eshoo referenced, the demand for spectrum continues to grow. Congress should do so in a 

way that promotes more competition and choices for consumers, 

better service quality, lower prices, and greater innovation. 

Second, unlicensed spectrum has become critical for economic 

growth and permissionless innovation. Efforts to increase available 

spectrum should strike a balance and increase the amount of spectrum available for unlicensed use. 

Turning to my first point, critical missions across the government depend on federal spectrum including early warning missile 

systems and air traffic control systems. At the same time, America’s broadband providers, consumers, innovators, and new technologies are demanding more and more spectrum. This is why we 

encourage Congress, along with the federal agencies responsible for 

spectrum allocation, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, and the Federal Communications Commission, to work together to devise a consistent and reliable spectrum 

pipeline that can meet this growing spectrum demand. 

Public Knowledge supports policy initiatives that enable federal 

users to accomplish their critical missions in a manner that also 

maximizes opportunities for spectrum sharing or relocating federal 

users to enhance federal availability for commercial competition 

and innovation. If done thoughtfully and in collaboration with Congress, agencies and other stakeholders, creative solutions to increase spectrum availability have the opportunity to be a rare winwin-win in public policy. 

The first win is freeing up additional spectrum for mobile 

broadband use to meet the increasing demand on our wireless networks; second, by encouraging more efficient federal use of scarce 

public resources; and third, by expanding the amount of spectrum 

available for innovative, unlicensed uses like next generation WiFi networks. 

Legislation under consideration by this committee is a good start. 

Public Knowledge supports HR 1641, sponsored by Representative 

Guthrie and Representative Matsui. Providing financial incentives 

for federal spectrum users to relocate from their existing bands is 

10 

a creative way to free up much needed spectrum for commercial 

users and unlicensed innovation. 

Public Knowledge also supports the goals of the subcommittee’s 

discussion draft legislation to lay the groundwork for the FCC to 

engage in long-term planning on relocating federal users from various spectrum bands, auctioning the cleared spectrum, and finding 

a balance between licensed and unlicensed uses. 

Turning to the importance of unlicensed spectrum, the economic 

activity and consumer benefits derived from mobile broadband use 

are immense. Today, a majority of mobile device traffic is offloaded 

onto fixed broadband networks via Wi-Fi and that traffic only continues to grow. Unlicensed spectrum has democratized internet access and encouraged permissionless innovation. The value unlicensed spectrum contributes to the U.S. economy is estimated to 

exceed $220 billion annually. Unlicensed uses of spectrum include 

more than just Wi-Fi. Unlicensed frequencies are open for any person and any device to use, for any legal purpose. Uses include 

cordless phones and baby monitors, Bluetooth, radio frequency 

identification or RFID which is used for making mobile payments 

for paying tolls on highways and tracking baggage in transit. Unlicensed frequencies are also necessary for connecting the burgeoning internet of things which Representative Clarke has referenced. 

Given the enormous benefits of unlicensed spectrum, any legislative effort to increase the licensed spectrum pipeline should also expand the amount of spectrum made available for license-exempt 

use. One option would be to create a cut for unlicensed spectrum 

in newly freed up bands. Commissioner Rosenworcel has called this 

the Wi-Fi dividends. And to open up even more spectrum for unlicensed use, Congress may consider opportunities to allow for unlicensed sharing of bands where federal users reside including asking the FCC to examine the possibility of an unlicensed underlay 

while establishing mechanisms to protect critical bands and prevent interference. 

Thank you to the members of the subcommittee for your time. I 

look forward to the opportunity to answer your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Berenbroick follows:] 

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Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Berenbroick, thank you for your testimony and 

your support of our efforts. We appreciate it as always. 

Now we go to Jeffrey H. Reed, the Willis G. Worchester Professor 

in—OK, forget that. We will now to Dennis A. Roberson, Vice Provost, Research Professor in Computer Science, Illinois Institute of 

Technology. We welcome you, sir. Please pull that microphone 

close. Make sure the light is lit and the floor is yours. 

STATEMENT OF DENNIS A. ROBERSON 

Mr. ROBERSON. Good morning, Chairman Walden, Ranking Member Eshoo, and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the 

opportunity to participate in this vitally important discussion on 

the management and usage of federal spectrum and related systems. 

As chairman of the FCC’s Technological Advisory Council, I can 

assure you that there is no more pressing issue than spectrum use 

and management. Through the council’s expertise and multi-stakeholder processes, the Technological Advisory Council, along with 

the Department of Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory 

Committee, where I also serve, have become ground zero for many 

of the core spectrum policy issues that challenge us today. 

As these challenges and future issues arise, we must be up to the 

task of understanding the data behind spectrum usage and to develop forward-looking technologies and policies designed to optimize the most efficient use of spectrum. Such optimization has 

been the technical focus and a personal passion over the course of 

much of my career, whether it was as Motorola’s Chief Technology 

Officer, or in my current role as Vice Provost for Research at Illinois Institute of Technology and as President and CEO of a technology and management consulting firm. 

With few minor exceptions, our nation’s spectrum resources have, 

for decades, been fully allocated for various government and commercial applications. Given this reality, the only way to expand existing applications and support the introduction of next generation 

technology is to either clear and relocate spectrum or to share it. 

The proposition of clearing spectrum, federal or otherwise, is an 

increasingly daunting task involving the identification of applications in spectrum that can either be relocated or terminated, negotiating and finding the financial means to support relocation costs 

or to pay the incumbents for service termination, and establishing 

the plans and estimating the time it will take to accomplish this 

transition. 

The so-called millimeter wave band, a spectral area above 30 

gigahertz and extending to 60 plus gigahertz, is an area where significant quantities of cleared spectrum seem feasible today. The 

propagation characteristics of this spectrum pose a huge challenge, 

but research into the application of new technologies, massive, multiple input, multiple output, antenna arrays, show great promise, 

especially for this millimeter wave band and should certainly be 

encouraged as well as supported financially. 

The process for sharing spectrum is notoriously slow. However, 

things can happen at a faster pace, if and onlyif the new user is 

able to share the spectrum in such a manner that the incumbent 

experiences little to no actual harm or perceivable impact from the 

17 

presence of the new service, or if the harm is outweighed by the 

benefits flowing from shared use of the spectrum. 

There are several emerging classes of spectrum-sharing opportunities the committee should be aware of. Satellite spectrum, similar 

to the spectrum liberated in the AWS–3 Auction can be shared and 

reapplied to terrestrial use. Radar and communication spectrum 

can be shared, especially for lightly used weather radar bands, the 

2.7s, the 2.9 gigahertz band and radar altimeters at the 4.4 to 4.6 

gigahertz band. Bi-directional sharing which would, among other 

things, enable the government to employ lightly used or unused 

commercial spectrum when they need it for government activities 

such as DOD tests. And satellite spectrum allocations around the 

GNSS band that would efficiently be used for terrestrial purposes. 

We cannot make more spectrum, but we can utilize spectrum 

more efficiently. The key point in all of this is that nearly all spectrum that is not currently being fully utilized can technically be 

used with spectrum management policies that are forward looking 

and driven by efficient use. The emerging use cases of these particular spectrum frequencies will enable the rapid transition to 

next generation technologies like 5G, thereby maintaining the U.S. 

leadership in cellular technology deployment. 

Eight years ago, I set up the world’s first spectrum observatory 

in Chicago where we looked at how heavily particular spectrum 

and frequencies are being used over a period of time, down to the 

second level. Wide-scale deployment of similar spectrum monitoring 

equipment in high spectrum usage environments could help policy 

makers identify spectrum for either clearing or sharing. 

In conclusion, we have also learned that another major challenge 

to efficient spectrum use is receiver designs that promote inefficient spectrum use. Poorly designed receivers have a huge impact 

on spectrum availability and adjacent bands encouraging industry 

to adopt its own standard-setting methods for receivers will open 

the door to technological advances that can potentially produce billions of dollars of GDP growth while also creating significant spectrum efficiency. 

Thank you for your prioritization of this critical issue. And I look 

forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Roberson follows:] 

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Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Roberson, thank you for testimony. I intend to 

follow up on the issue of sloppy front ends and receivers when we 

go forward. 

We go now to Jeffrey H. Reed of the Willis G. Worcester Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Virginia Polytechnic 

Institute and State University. Dr. Reed, we are delighted to have 

you here. Please go ahead. 

STATEMENT OF JEFFREY H. REED 

Mr. REED. Thank you, Chairman Walden and Ranking Member 

Eshoo and the subcommittee for the invitation to speak before you. 

My goals are to address some of the key trends and emerging 

technologies that are impacting spectrum management and to discuss how R&D can make spectrum availability easier, how we can 

transition that spectrum in a much quicker way by doing the upfront R&D. 

We all know that wireless traffic is growing very quickly. Sysco 

projects that the volume of wireless traffic will increase by a factor 

of 7X between 2014 and 2019. And there are reasons for this 

growth projection. There is a whole set of new applications that are 

just around the corner, applications such as augmented reality, 

where you get a super position of computer-generated images in 

your field of view. I would like to call it just-in-time learning and 

the ability to be able to do complex tasks through augmentation; 

ambient intelligence that predicts the way that we will use things; 

and telemedicine and elder care, huge benefits in having wireless 

technology for these particular areas. Being able to compensate for 

cognitive impairments, being able to keep people in their homes 

safely for a longer period of time. This is going to be made feasible 

by using wireless technology. 

There is a whole bunch of new technologies that will help us to 

achieve this goal of greater wireless traffic, things such as small 

cells, miniature bay stations, bay stations that 20 years ago would 

have cost $1 million, now $200 bucks at Best Buy. Higher frequencies, higher frequencies like Dennis Roberson talked about, 

offer the potential of providing huge amounts of bandwidth. And 

then there are two technologies that I think are particularly relevant, spectrum sharing, which we are starting to see in AWS–3 

as well as the 3.5 gigahertz band. And another one that is probably 

not quite as appreciated and that is software-based infrastructure. 

The basic idea behind this is that we digitize the signal with the 

antenna and we ship over fiber to the cloud to do processing. And 

that is going to have some major ramifications on the way that we 

can manage spectrum. It is going to enable sharing, both of federal 

spectrum and of commercial spectrum for federal users. 

This is also going to allow us to greatly reduce cost and add flexibility. 

So the role of R&D to speed this transition will—actually, I have 

been very encouraged by the way that policy has proceeded in the 

past few years. Changing spectrum policy has always been known 

to be incredibly slow and if you look back over the past few years 

some amazing things have happened. However, I think we can do 

better. And I think we can do better and be more prepared for this 

transition by doing our upfront R&D. For example, AWS–3 transiVerDate Nov 24 2008 11:39 Mar 02, 2016 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00032 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\MY DOCS\HEARINGS 114\114-84 CHRIS
27 

tion was very successful in bringing in revenue. But I think it could 

have been better. And the reason is that there are still unknown 

issues on how the commercial systems and the federal systems are 

going to coexist with each other. Those are R&D issues that should 

have been worked out beforehand. And the same with the 3.5 

gigahertz transition. Things could have gone smoother if we had 

done more upfront R&D about the channel characteristics. The 

FCC struggled in their Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to get this 

information. 

And in both cases, it delayed the transition of that spectrum, so 

I have a number of recommendations and I am running out of time. 

I think the key recommendation is to put funding into upfront 

R&D to make these bands easy to transition, quicker to transition. 

We have to do it anyway, so we might as well do it up front. And 

if you remove the risk, then we will be able to transition these 

bands quicker and we will be able to perhaps even save more 

money for the Federal Government because risk causes a discount 

in the pricing of that spectrum. 

So in conclusion, I encourage more forward leaning in the planning and the R&D and this will shorten the transition times to 

make this valuable economic resource available to us. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Reed follows:] 

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Mr. WALDEN. Thank you, Dr. Reed. We appreciate your testimony, as well as that of your colleagues at the dais. It is very interesting, the suggestions you come up with, the work that you all 

have done to look at other spectrum. 

And I guess the question I would have and some of you lay out 

some suggestions in your testimony, if you could give us some 

counsel on the specific bands we should be focused in on. 

And I know, Mr. Roberson, in some of your research in Chicago, 

it is graphically evident what is in use and what is not because we 

have limited time and resource, too, and we have proven that we 

can bring agencies and private sector together and work out some 

of the differences. 

I agree with Dr. Reed on the notion of R&D in advance. It gives 

you certainty before you go into the auction which could raise its 

value therefore. So that is something we will take a look at, too. 

Can you give us some suggestions or can get back to us, Mr. 

Roberson? 

Mr. ROBERSON. I would be delighted to. Actually, if we could 

bring up the screen that we had earlier? 

Mr. WALDEN. We have enough spectrum capacity, I am sure we 

can do that. 

Mr. ROBERSON. What you may have noted as I delivered my remarks—— 

Mr. WALDEN. Could you explain that? 

Mr. ROBERSON. That is what I was going to do very quickly. I 

mentioned the world’s first spectrum observatory in Chicago and 

what you are seeing is the live feed from that observatory. So this 

is the spectrum usage in Chicago at this minute. 

Mr. WALDEN. Right there. 

Mr. ROBERSON. Right there. And what you can clearly see, this 

is power versus spectrum. The spectrum starts at 30 megahertz 

which is just below the low end of the TV band and runs to six 

gigahertz which is just above the 5 megahertz part of the—— 

Mr. WALDEN. So for lay people, give me an idea. It kind of does 

the up and down there and then goes across kind of flat. Is that 

satellite band? 

Mr. ROBERSON. Right. The flat parts are all the areas where to 

your earlier question where we should be investigating. I will 

apologize for the bit of a rise at 3 gigahertz. That is an artifact. 

Mr. WALDEN. OK. 

Mr. ROBERSON. But the elements that you see going up and you 

can see television and FM radio and the like and the cellular bands 

and so on, but you see large areas from 1 gigahertz to 1.7 gigahertz 

where there is very little activity. You can see other bands, 2.7 to 

3.0 in the middle of the chart and I know that the numbers are 

so small you can’t quite see them. But there is a blank area there. 

And as you go out, 4 gigahertz, particularly 4.2 to 4.4 I call out as 

areas where investigation would certainly yield—— 

Mr. WALDEN. And what would be on those bands today? 

Mr. ROBERSON. The bands, there are a variety of things in 1 to 

1.7, but there is satellite activities in those bands, some radar. In 

2.7 to 2.9, this is the weather radar bands. In 4.2 to 4.4 is radar 

altimeters for airplanes which you would not normally think of as 

an opportunity band, but since those radars are only used during 

39 

landing and takeoff and we know where all the airports are and 

we know where the airplanes are, so the opportunity to utilize that 

spectrum carefully is another significant opportunity area. And 

there are others. 

Mr. WALDEN. And given the issues with the latest hurricane and 

others and the discussion about adequate satellite coverage for 

weather event prediction, your point isn’t that you blow all that off 

the airplanes? 

Mr. ROBERSON. No, no, no. 

Mr. WALDEN. Your point is that there is not much data coming 

up and down and we can actually share. Is that right? 

Mr. ROBERSON. Exactly right. In all cases, I am really suggesting 

sharing, not to clear. And that is a huge opportunity. When you 

think about satellites that are operating in the vertical direction 

and terrestrial use which is orthogonal direction, you have an opportunity to share these bands, not in any way impacting—— 

Mr. WALDEN. Existing—— 

Mr. ROBERSON [continuing]. Existing uses. 

Mr. WALDEN. I want to shift to one of my pet peeves and that 

is uh-oh, we just had a flood. We will get some help here. But 

meanwhile, receivers. What is it that you recommend could be done 

here to get better built, better engineered receivers? This has been 

a long-time problem. And we don’t want to mandate standards per 

se, but boy, I would like to see more skin in the game on the receiver side than what we see today. 

Mr. ROBERSON. Perhaps I could jump on that one since I called 

it out. My very good friend, Dale Hatfield, has been working on 

this problem for approaching 50 years which is incredible, but it 

has been a problem for a very, very long time. 

The new elements that provide opportunity in this area are two. 

First, the opportunity for industry to take the lead and to self-govern itself, but place the requirement that industry do so. You rightly speak to the point that government should not, no one should 

dictate the way a receiver is designed. But dictating the requirement for having the industry itself self-govern is a good direction. 

A second one that has actually come out the work in the Technological Advisory Council is something called the interference limits 

policy which establishes a harm’s claim threshold where if you are, 

as a transmitter, if you are above that threshold the transmitter 

needs to fix itself. 

Mr. WALDEN. Come back down. Right. 

Mr. ROBERSON. If it is below that and the receiver is experiencing interference, the receiver has to be fixed. The beauty of this 

is it establishes a bar because today the debates are endless on 

what is harmful interference. 

Mr. WALDEN. We went through this with Light Squared GPS. Is 

somebody listening in? Is it going to be too much power? Back and 

forth, back and forth. But you all are smart enough to figure out 

a—— 

Mr. ROBERSON. And there is no bar. And this would establish the 

bar. 

Mr. WALDEN. Right. 

Mr. ROBERSON. And with that bar and a measurable bar, you can 

now determine whether, who needs to remedy the situation. 

40 

Mr. WALDEN. Unfortunately, we have a bar and it is measurable 

and I have exceeded it by a minute and 37 seconds. So I thank my 

colleagues for the indulgence. We will go to the ranking member 

from California, Ms. Eshoo. 

Ms. ESHOO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. But it was worth the 

extra minute and 38 seconds in terms of what we just heard. 

To each one of you, thank you for your excellent testimony. It is 

really highly instructive and it is most helpful to us when you target specific areas of recommendations to us. It really is most helpful to us in shaping a work product to address it. 

Thank you, Mr. Berenbroick, for your attention to unlicensed 

spectrum. I don’t think anyone has come here and given testimony 

concentrating so much on unlicensed and the importance of it. So 

I appreciate it very, very much. 

One of the aspects that appears to be, I think, missing from the 

bills under consideration today is the role that the Spectrum Relocation Fund can play in promoting new research and development. 

And you raised R&D and placed a heavy emphasis on it. It is one 

of the most important undertakings regardless of what area we are 

in, but certainly as it applies to what we are talking about today, 

so it can play, I think, a really key role in promoting new—advancing more research and development. 

In an August 31st letter, the OMB recommended removing some 

of the restrictions on this fund that prevent funds from being used 

for R&D, spectrum planning, and pilot projects. Do you agree that 

increased agency flexibility would enhance our efforts—I am teeing 

this up for you—would enhance our efforts to free up additional licensed and unlicensed spectrum and promote greater efficiency? 

That is to all of you. 

Mr. REED. Well, maybe I can go ahead. I certainly agree with 

that recommendation. I know of no one who disagrees with that 

recommendation within the spectrum community. We should be focusing the funds on solving the problem, not associating with the 

specific interests. We made R&D funds available to the transition 

after the sale of the band. It is like buying your product and then 

deciding to do the R&D. 

Ms. ESHOO. I understand. Do you know how much money is in 

this fund? 

Mr. REED. I think it is around $500 million. It is quite a bit. 

Ms. ESHOO. That is a good pot. Mr. Roberson? 

Mr. ROBERSON. No, I also strongly agree with the points that Mr. 

Reed has made and believe that it is essential to do the work in 

advance and in fact, exploring taking off the testimony already provided, with the bands that can be identified through the ability to 

see the spectrum. Several members made the point that this is invisible spectrum. Well, it actually isn’t invisible for those of us with 

instrumentation. 

Ms. ESHOO. Yes, you showed that on the chart. 

Mr. ROBERSON. Exactly. And we can use that to identify bands 

that have potential. But there is a need for funding for the researchers to then take the next steps and to really understand the 

parameters to allow that—— 

41 

Ms. ESHOO. I don’t know whether this belongs in the MatsuiGuthrie legislation or the other, but I think that this is something 

for us to pay attention to. 

Mr. Berenbroick? 

Mr. BERENBROICK. Thank you. Yes, I think we are all in agreement. We would like to see creative and innovative ways that make 

federal spectrum users more efficient. That way it can facilitate 

spectrum sharing or in ways to facilitate relocating those federal 

users to free up that spectrum for both licensed and unlicensed 

uses. That is one of the reasons why we support H.R. 1641 and we 

support the ideas you mentioned as well. 

Ms. ESHOO. That is great. Mr. Roberson and Dr. Reed, you were 

both members of the PCAST, weren’t you? 

Mr. REED. Yes, we were. 

Ms. ESHOO. Have we made any real progress in your view in implementing the recommendations? I thought it was an extraordinary report. I know you put and all the members put a great deal 

of time and effort into it. And we thank you for it. In some ways, 

I think it is under appreciated. But do you think that—tell us what 

you think we have not harvested from that that fits with what we 

are discussing today? 

Mr. REED. Yes, I think we have made great progress since that 

report. The 3.5 gigahertz band, I think is a great example of that. 

The FCC pretty well followed the recommendations of the PCAST 

committee and how to structure it. I think we could have done it 

faster if we had known some basic principles. Here is the basic 

principle. If you have a transmitter over here with so much power, 

how well will that be received inside of a building some distance 

away? I mean that is pretty fundamental. 

Ms. ESHOO. It is. 

Mr. REED. But yet, at that band, there wasn’t very much information on that. It should have been done beforehand. 

Ms. ESHOO. Beforehand. Mr. Roberson? 

Mr. ROBERSON. Yes. I would agree that there has been a great 

deal of progress in the PCAST report. Jeff and I had the opportunity to write a fair amount of that. So—— 

Ms. ESHOO. I read it. I read it all very carefully. 

Mr. ROBERSON. Well, good. There are things though that have 

not yet been really touched, although they have been talked about. 

The wireless model city, the test city that was described in the report really has had discussions, but no action taken at this point. 

The subject of the bill providing stronger incentives was another 

item in the policy proposal that has as yet although I am delighted 

to see the work going on here, it is a very intractable problem, but 

it still needs more work. 

Ms. ESHOO. Thank you very much to each one of you. 

Mr. WALDEN. I thank the gentlelady. Thank you, gentlemen. And 

let us go now to Mr. Latta, the vice chair of the Subcommittee on 

Communications and Technology. The floor is yours. 

Mr. LATTA. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and to our panelists, 

thanks very much for being here. 

And Professor Roberson, if I could start with the questioning for 

you, a 2011 GAO report found several flaws in the spectrum management and use monitoring practices of the NTIA. At the time 

42 

GAO made three recommendations to improve NTIA’s oversight of 

agency spectrum use, one of which remains open, the development 

of a strategic plan. 

Do you believe that there are areas for improvement in the 

NTIA’s practices? 

Mr. ROBERSON. There are always areas of improvement for all of 

our practices, but particularly in this area. One of the things that 

is needed and I will really go back to the spectrum observatory capability, the practice out of NTIA is to solicit from the users of 

spectrum their usage models, then to correlate, collate those and 

thereby predict the usage across the country as opposed to independently assessing that use of spectrum. And that is a huge flaw. 

If you are asked are you using your spectrum? If the answer is no, 

I am going to take it from you, there is a pretty easy answer that 

comes back from that sort of assessment. And that is the difficulty 

in a very high contrast way with the approach that NTIA is able 

to use at this point. 

Mr. LATTA. Let me follow up with how have the tools like their 

Federal Government spectrum compendium improved our ability to 

review and assess the spectrum use? Are you familiar with that? 

Mr. ROBERSON. I couldn’t—— 

Mr. LATTA. How have their tools like the Federal Government 

spectrum compendium improved our ability to review and assess 

the spectrum use? 

Mr. ROBERSON. You are speaking to spectrum observatory data 

that we collect. I think that is what you are asking. 

Mr. LATTA. OK. 

Mr. ROBERSON. It has been actually enormously helpful because 

not only do we have the screen that you have seen, but we have 

kept the compendium that you are talking about. We have eight 

years’ worth of data for Chicago, so we not only know how it is 

being used today, but we know how it has been used for the last 

eight years. We have begun to expand that and in fact, we have 

a spectrum observatory that is resident on Dr. Reed’s campus, so 

we are able to observe the usage there and again, capture the data 

over an extended period of time. So that enables us to look at the 

spectrum, to identify the places where spectrum is ill-utilized and 

then begin the process of researching that spectrum and how it 

could be better utilized. And we are able to do that. 

Often there are critics that say oh, yes, you looked at it this time, 

but if you had looked at it three months earlier, it was heavily utilized. Well, in our case, if you want to look at three months earlier, 

we will go back and look at three months earlier or any time in 

the last eight years we will look at how that spectrum was used. 

And that is a powerful tool in being able to really understand the 

spectrum opportunities that exist. 

Mr. LATTA. Thank you. And this is a question to all panelists and 

so with my remaining minute and 45 here if you could answer 

briefly. Do you think federal agencies have the right incentive to 

utilize spectrum as efficiently as possible? And if not, what incentives motivate federal agencies to utilize spectrum more efficiently? 

Mr. BERENBROICK. Thank you for the question. To touch on the 

question you just asked Mr. Roberson for just one second before I 

answer, Public Knowledge actually produced a white paper in 2010 

43 

on possible improvements to federal spectrum. I am happy to submit that for the record and we will do that after the hearing. 

Mr. LATTA. Thank you. 

Mr. BERENBROICK. On the question of incentives, right now I 

think it is TBD regarding whether agencies have the right incentives right now. I think we would like to see more incentives. We 

would like to see innovative incentives to help those agencies find 

ways to (a) use their spectrum more efficiently; and (b) find ways 

to consolidate their spectrum use. That way spectrum resources 

can be either reallocated for commercial use and unlicensed use or 

they can be shared using more efficient technologies in the band. 

That is why we are supportive—we mentioned the Spectrum Relocation Fund issue earlier with Ranking Member Eshoo. And we are 

supportive of the legislation H.R. 1641 and we support the FCC 

which the discussion draft would do. We support the FCC having 

the tools to take a look at bands and figure out how to make usage 

more efficient. 

Mr. ROBERSON. The incentives are not there today. To me, in 

short form, probably one of the best incentives is to do the upfront 

research so that agencies can be assured that they can complete 

their mission in an alternative way. 

Today, the real fear isn’t that the agencies want to hoard spectrum or anything like that. They are simply trying to accomplish 

their mission. And without the upfront research to know how they 

can accomplish their mission in an alternative way with alternative 

spectrum, they loathe to give up that spectrum. 

Mr. REED. Maybe I could comment on that one as well? I think 

that incentives can help and incentives may also be beneficial to 

flow to commercial companies. What bothers the agencies is they 

don’t know how to proceed. They don’t know what technology they 

can use to substitute for the technology that they have now. And 

if we do the upfront R&D, then industry will know, they will be 

able to develop the products so that the federal users won’t fear 

transition. They will embrace it because they will see that in the 

end they will have a better system. 

Mr. LATTA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My time has expired and 

I thank you for the indulgence. 

Mr. WALDEN. You are more than welcome. We appreciate the 

comments from the witnesses and your questions. 

We will now go to Mr. Pallone of New Jersey for 5 minutes. 

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The U.S. has led the 

world when it comes to fourth generation wireless technologies and 

as consumers start looking ahead to new fifth generation technologies, we need to ensure the U.S. continues to be a front runner. 

So I wanted to ask both Dr. Reed and Mr. Berenbroick what we 

can do help the U.S. remain a leader in next generation wireless 

technology? 

Mr. REED. Certainly to be out there in front we need to do the 

basic R&D. That is obvious. But perhaps less obvious is what we 

are doing here today. Actually, I think what you are doing is quite 

valuable for 5G because everyone that I know of within the research community is expecting that 5G will incorporate spectrum 

sharing. And because of the changes in policies that we have been 

44 

going through over the past few years, this is positioning us quite 

well. It is growth through good policy. 

Mr. PALLONE. All right. Mr. Berenbroick? 

Mr. BERENBROICK. So how to enable 5G to keep us ahead of the 

rest of world. First, I think as Dr. Reed mentioned, what this committee is doing is exactly what we should be doing which is to 

think about creative ways to find additional spectrum for both licensed and unlicensed uses and also to have conversations about 

how to improve spectrum efficiency and spectrum sharing. Like the 

transition from 3G to 4G, the transition from 4G to 5G will increase traffic on our wireless networks which will necessitate the 

need for more licensed spectrum. 

Likewise, the more spectrum we have traveling on our licensed 

networks will result in more offload to our unlicensed networks to 

Wi-Fi. So we need more spectrum set aside for unlicensed use as 

well. 

Mr. PALLONE. All right, thanks. And we have more and more 

consumer data traveling over unlicensed airways, but unlicensed 

spectrum is more than just a boon to consumers. It also drives innovation and significantly contributes to the U.S. economy. Some 

estimate that it gives a $220 billion boost to the economy every 

year. 

Earlier this year, FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel proposed that Congress create a Wi-Fi dividend to account for these 

benefits. 

And I wanted to ask Mr. Berenbroick, in your testimony you say 

that a Wi-Fi dividend may be a good idea. Can you explain more 

about this and the other options for increasing spectrum for unlicensed use? 

Mr. BERENBROICK. Sure. So I referenced Commissioner 

Rosenworcel’s testimony before a Senate Commerce Committee 

where she mentioned the idea of the Wi-Fi dividend. The idea there 

would be that when we look at spectrum to free up for licensed use, 

we also think about spectrum to free up for unlicensed use. The rationale is that the traffic that comes over licensed networks, much 

of that will eventually be offloaded on to unlicensed networks, and 

so you need those two systems to work together in concert. 

I think you are exactly right when you mention the economic benefits of unlicensed spectrum. Like you mentioned, $220 billion 

in yearly economic activity. But that is only part of it. You are also 

talking about making a bet on the future with unlicensed. Unlicensed, we are looking at the internet of things. 

We are looking at billions of devices connected to the network, 

the ability of anyone to plug in, the ability of anyone to plug in and 

to develop a device, develop a product at relatively low cost and to 

get it on to the network and to create a market for that product. 

So the economic benefits, I would imagine, are somewhat under estimated by the $220 billion, at least going forward in the future. 

Mr. PALLONE. All right. I have one more question for you. Earlier 

this week, Politico had a story chronicling the difficulty we face in 

getting credit in the budget for revenue generated by spectrum auctions. I know you are not an expert in federal spectrum valuation, 

but can you elaborate on the value to consumers that comes from 

the reallocation of additional spectrum? 

45 

Mr. BERENBROICK. Yes. So I saw the same article that you referenced and let me preface, I am not an expert on budget policy 

or CBO scoring, but we were—the unlicensed community is disappointed to see that unlicensed spectrum and the economic benefits of unlicensed spectrum are not really considered by CBO. And 

so we would be happy to work with Congress, work with other 

stakeholders to figure out how to address that issue to make sure 

that allocating more spectrum for both licensed and unlicensed 

uses is made possible and that the CBO scoring issue doesn’t continue to be a roadblock. 

Mr. PALLONE. Thanks a lot. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. WALDEN. Thank you, Mr. Pallone. We appreciate your questions. We will now go to Mr. Shimkus from Illinois and have at it. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. WALDEN. Welcome. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Doctor, you better be careful for claiming that we 

are going growth. There is growth through good policy. You are in 

Washington and really nothing good is happening here these days. 

So you may not—yes, yes. I will try to reiterate that. I don’t know 

if my constituents will agree, but we appreciate those positive 

words. Thank you. 

Besides— let me go where I want to go here. What are the benefits of a long term spectrum planning and a consistent pipeline? If 

we could just go from left to—my left, your right. 

The business argument is that obviously to have to have consistency and you have got to be able to plan and execute, so what do 

you see the benefits of this? 

Mr. BERENBROICK. This was mentioned in the opening statements by some of the other witnesses. The process by which we 

have typically allocated spectrum for commercial uses and for unlicensed uses has typically been a relatively slow process. We find 

a band that we want to relocate. We have to figure out how to 

move the user off of that band. We take the time to auction that 

band and then new services start to deploy. 

And so I think some estimates, I think the PCAST report said 

it was about a decade from identification to deployment. That is 

slow. I think we would all like to see that process move faster. So 

that said, I think the discussion draft bill that the commission has 

put forward or that the subcommittee has put forward is actually 

very helpful. It asks the FCC to do that forward planning. And so 

finding that pipeline spectrum where we can figure out which 

bands and which uses go into those bands and to move forward 

with that quickly that is an incredible useful exercise. That way, 

all stakeholders can think about what is next, what do we need, 

what is coming? 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Great. Mr. Roberson? 

Mr. ROBERSON. Yes, the nature of spectrum use is a long game 

activity. It is measured in decades. Therefore, there is a need for 

a strategic plan that stretches out to an unprecedented length in 

the way business operates and even the way things operate in 

Washington where we are planning what we are going to do in 

spectrum 25 years from now. 

So having the data, I keep hitting on that point, that would support our direction, and then putting together the strategic plan 

46 

that would position different spectrum usage even as it allows for 

innovation and new things that were not anticipated when the plan 

was put in place first is really critical and something that this body 

could do great service to the country by pushing it. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Thank you. Dr. Reed. 

Mr. REED. I think it is very important to be consistent and forward looking in spectrum from a business perspective. Businesses, 

in fact, I have talked to VC about this. Sometimes VC don’t want 

to hear it if it is a communications issue that requires some sort 

of regulatory aspect of it because there is so much uncertainty that 

is involved in it. If we have consistency in our spectrum policy, and 

with a plan, then businesses are more likely to be funded. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Great. Professor Roberson and Dr. Reed, you are 

both members of I think I pronounced this right, CSMAC or CMA 

or whatever it is called. 

Mr. REED. Both of them. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. A federal advisory committee comprised of spectrum experts that provide advice and recommendations to NTIA. 

Mr. Berenbroick, your colleague at Public Knowledge is a member as well, I believe. He is back there hiding. Can you all discuss 

the current role that the committee and where you see it being 

most useful in the examination of federal spectrum use and are 

there ways to further and better take advantage of the expertise 

that is on this board? 

Mr. ROBERSON. I guess I can take that one because I am actually 

the ranking member of this body on that particular committee. It 

is an excellent committee in terms of expertise, in terms of the 

multi-stakeholder nature of the group. Many ideas are brought to 

that committee. There are strong papers that are put forth. It is 

still a slow process though. And expediting that process, giving 

more problems to that body to sink their teeth into and to execute 

on is a very good thing. NTIA, Department of Commerce certainly 

do that, but I think they would be more than open to the questions 

that this body would have to be brought to them. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. It sounds like governmental, slow and methodical. 

But I appreciate it. Thanks. 

Mr. WALDEN. The gentleman’s time has expired. We now go to 

a gentleman from Vermont. He is not here, Mr. Welch. Ms. 

DeGette is not here. Ms. Clarke, I believe you are next. 

Ms. CLARKE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Reed, in 

your testimony you spoke of for the sake of efficiency it being necessary to invest in up front due diligence. Based on your experience, what is the main challenge when it comes to finding spectrum bands that could be reallocated? 

Mr. REED. I think the main challenge is understanding how the 

new systems that would enter in that band would potentially interfere with the legacy users. And that involves getting an understanding of the nature of what we call the channel, the propagation 

channel, how well will the signal transmit. 

It also means looking at the susceptibility of those systems to interference. And this requires studies, upfront R&D well beforehand 

in developing the planning tools. And in some cases there can be 

issues in terms of classification and ITAR as well when you deal 

with DOD systems. And sometimes that breaks down the commuVerDate Nov 24 2008 11:39 Mar 02, 2016 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00052 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\MY DOCS\HEARINGS 114\114-84 CHRIS
47 

nication between the commercial entrants and the legacy DOD 

users. 

Ms. CLARKE. So having said that, how would you suggest that we 

move forward to keep up with consumer demand? 

Mr. REED. Well, I think we need to get commercial entities talking very early with the Department of Defense. With these transitions, they will not go smoothly. There are always going to be 

things that come up that weren’t expected and if we are transparent on both sides and collaborative on both sides, then we will 

be able to work together to solve those problems. 

Ms. CLARKE. It would seem to me that those discussions should 

be underway as we speak, knowing what we know about the almost inevitability that these requests are coming down the pike. 

Mr. REED. I agree with you. 

Ms. CLARKE. Did you want to add something, Mr. Roberson? 

Mr. ROBERSON. I am always delighted to add. But in this area, 

I think the key point is doing the work up front to the degree possible, as Dr. Reed has said. The other point that I would add 

though is that having an independent arbiter, if you will, technical 

arbiter, that can provide the input on whether a particular proposition is technically accurate or not is very, very important. Such 

an arbiter has been recently established under the Department of 

Commerce in Boulder. NASCTN is the acronym for the organization. And I think this organization can be extremely valuable in 

helping to sort through some of these issues and expeditiously and 

independently coming up with resolutions that will stand the test 

of time. 

Ms. CLARKE. Very well, and after the incentive auction next year, 

the next major auction could be years down the road, so what are 

the next generation technology demands on spectrum? We have 

been able to understand what that is and what it looks like and 

that is open to the panel. 

Mr. BERENBROICK. So in your opening statement, you referenced 

the internet of things. I think the internet of things is the next 

generation demand on that network. Billions of devices are going 

to connect to one another, largely through small cells using unlicensed spectrum. Additionally, as folks have mentioned on this 

panel, traffic over the licensed networks is going to continue to 

grow exponentially. 

So the challenge here is to share spectrum as we have mentioned 

on this panel. The process of freeing up and reallocating spectrum 

is long and cumbersome and difficult. Sharing spectrum provides 

sort of a work around, if you will to use spectrum that is under utilized. So I think internet of things, finding a way to deal with increased mobile traffic and I think spectrum sharing is in the short 

term I think a great way to accomplish meeting those needs. 

Mr. ROBERSON. We have an insatiable demand for spectrum. The 

demand for data, be it the internet of things or us communicating 

with one another or communicating to computers, deriving information from them or satisfying our entertainment needs, it is an insatiable demand right now. So moving to technologies that allow us 

to re-use that spectrum and use it very efficiently is absolutely critical and there are many, many things. I could spend a very long 

time on your question because it is a very rich question. But these 

48 

technologies must be explored and used in concert with one another 

and there are many technologies that have to come into play to 

even approach the satisfaction of our needs as a U.S. national organization. 

Mr. REED. I think one thing that we need to be aware of is that 

the nature of wireless traffic could change over the coming years. 

And by that, today, we are receivers of information. We receive our 

email. We don’t compose a lot of the email from our blackberries 

or iPhones. We download web pages. We watch movies. But in the 

future, we may be actually collectors of information and that traffic 

may flow from us into the network. 

To be able to accommodate that that means we are going to have 

flexible spectrum policies going forward as we tend to do allocations based upon what direction the information flows. 

Mr. WALDEN. Very interesting. We will have to pursue that another time with you because that is something we better be prepared for because we are in the multiples down versus singular up. 

We will go now to, I believe, Mr. Long is next in seniority based 

on the fall of the gavel. 

So Mr. Long, you are up next. 

Mr. LONG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Berenbroick, much 

has been made of the proper valuations of spectrum lately. There 

has been a lot of talk. And while it is difficult to predict, what do 

you view the potential dollar value of cleared spectrum and the 

bands considered best used for mobile broadband? 

Mr. BERENBROICK. Thank you for the question. Unfortunately, I 

am not a spectrum valuation expert. I wish I had that information 

for you. I can follow up with you after the hearing. 

Mr. LONG. I think that is very vital. I think that is something 

that I would like to learn from you if you could have your folks get 

back with me, I would appreciate it. 

Mr. BERENBROICK. Sure, I am happy to follow up. Thank you. 

Mr. LONG. OK, and Dr. Reed, how do you strike an appropriate 

balance between allowing industry to participate in the research 

and development phase, repurposing spectrum, and avoiding concerns of agency abuse of the process? 

Mr. REED. Let me see if I understand your question. Are you saying—— 

Mr. LONG. How do you strike an appropriate balance between allowing industry to participate in the research and development 

phase, a repurposing spectrum, and avoiding concerns of the agency’s abuse of the process? 

Mr. REED. That phase ‘‘avoiding the agency’s abuse of the process,’’ I take that to be that sometimes there is a clash between legacy federal users and those that want to enter the band. And you 

know, it is understandable. It is human nature. We want to protect 

what we have. 

I think what needs to be shown up front is that this is going to 

benefit the current users of that spectrum by doing this transition, 

that the commercial entities will help make that transition go 

smoother, although in the end potentially have even more capabilities through that collaborative activity. So we have to build trust 

and transparency. 

49 

Mr. LONG. OK. Thank you. And this is for you, Dr. Reed, and Mr. 

Roberson. Is it Roberson? 

Mr. ROBERSON. Either is fine. 

Mr. LONG. I will call you either then. 

Mr. ROBERSON. I do that, too. 

Mr. LONG. In seeking to maximize the value of spectrum to be 

auctioned, it seems to me that we need to do a few simple things 

like minimize impairments and provide potential bidders with as 

much information as possible about spectrum that they are bidding 

on. And being a former auctioneer for 30 years, I realize that the 

most information you can get to folks about what they are bidding 

on usually helps in the end result. Would you agree with that assessment? 

Mr. REED. Oh, absolutely. The value will go up if we can do risk 

mitigation for those that are bidding on the spectrum. 

Mr. ROBERSON. I definitely agree as well. 

Mr. LONG. With respect to impairments or exclusion zone, do you 

agree that we should base our judgments on real world usage rather than worst case analysis that might assume more interference 

than is really realistic in the real world and thus reduce the value 

of the spectrum to potential bidders, Dr. Reed? 

Mr. REED. That is so true. There has never been a communication system that has been able to get by without interference. And 

sometimes I see in FCC issues claims of interference, but it has to 

be significant interference. You just can’t say it is going to interfere. You have to have a balance of risk with practicality. 

Mr. LONG. OK. 

Mr. ROBERSON. No, totally agree. Worst case analysis, when we 

had an abundance of spectrum, that was a wonderful thing to do. 

It protected everyone. We don’t have an abundance of spectrum. So 

balancing risk is critical now and we have the tools to be able to 

do that. Many other agencies do use these kinds of tools way away 

from worst case to a practical case which is what your question 

was. 

Mr. LONG. OK. Thank you. And Mr. Berenbroick, what opportunities are there for federal agencies to share spectrum with other 

agencies? 

Mr. BERENBROICK. Well, I think there are numerous opportunities. I don’t have examples at my fingertips for you. But as the 

other panelists have mentioned, there are opportunities for spectrum to gain more spectrum efficiency and for spectrum sharing. 

Technologies that we have access to and are yet to be developed 

will allow for that. 

So there will be robust opportunities for agencies to share spectrum with one another, to share spectrum with unlicensed users 

and potentially to share spectrum with commercial users. That is 

why I think the discussion draft bill before the subcommittee is so 

important. It asked the FCC to ask and answer these questions. 

Mr. LONG. Thank you. I am past my time and I yield back. 

Mr. WALDEN. The gentleman yields back. The chair now recognizes the gentlelady from California, Ms. Matsui. 

Ms. MATSUI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Congressman Guthrie 

and I have been working in a bipartisan manner on spectrum in 

close cooperation with the federal agencies. We co-chair a spectrum 

50 

working group and we are tasked to find solutions to meet our nation’s growing commercial spectrum needs. I believe our collaborative oversight, and I do say collaborative, was critical to the success of the AWS–3 Auction which raised, as you know, more than 

$45 billion. And we worked to provide a reasonable path and that 

was really very important for the Department of Defense to relocate the 1755 to 1780 band in a responsible manner. And the 

AWS–3 was a huge win for consumers, innovation, and FirstNet, 

the public safety network that the auction will help pay for. 

Dr. Reed, what lessons do you think we learned in the AWS–3 

process? 

Mr. REED. I think the lessons are yet to be learned. We are still 

in the process of doing this transition and there is still a number 

of unknowns. For instance, what will the interference be with a 

large number of consumer handsets? How will they impact military 

systems? How will the commercial systems respond to the interference that might be caused by DOD systems? How do we go 

about authorizing zones in which the commercial users can operate 

when and where? Those are details that have yet to be worked out. 

So far, so good. But I wish these details had been worked out earlier. 

Ms. MATSUI. Right. I think we were making reasonable progress 

as we were trying to do and with our conversations with DOD trying to get to a point where we could have our discussion and move 

forward, knowing that there are details that we had to work on 

later. 

Mr. REED. Yes, I would say don’t slow it down. 

Ms. MATSUI. No. 

Mr. REED. I don’t want to sound like we should slow this down 

and work out the issues. 

Ms. MATSUI. I understand that. 

Mr. REED. We just need to do more of the upfront R&D, have 

more people working on it beforehand. 

Ms. MATSUI. Now Dr. Reed and Mr. Roberson, I know that you 

both serve on PCAST and that 2012 report from that group stated 

that federal agencies may have no incentive or authority to enhance their use of spectrum if the cost to police the budget available for the core mission. 

My legislation with Representative Guthrie seeks to provide that 

incentive, encouraging federal agencies to be more efficient by allowing them to share in auction proceeds. 

Mr. Berenbroick, do you agree that these financial incentives can 

be a game changer for federal agencies? 

Mr. BERENBROICK. Yes. We do think they can be and we hope 

they are. Providing financial incentives for federal agencies to relocate and use spectrum more efficiently could be a useful tool in 

freeing up more spectrum to be repurposed for commercial and unlicensed uses. But we should also remember that those incentives 

might not be a silver bullet. That is why we also support sharing 

a federal spectrum. 

And I also just want to point out if we are able to reallocate spectrum for commercial and licensed uses, we should think about competition as we reallocate that spectrum. And for these reasons this 

51 

is why we are supportive of the legislation that you and Congressman Guthrie sponsored, H.R. 1641. 

Ms. MATSUI. As we are talking about reallocation of spectrum 

rights and reallocation of government users, typically, you have the 

priority when developing spectrum policy. The spectrum sharing 

also is an option as noted in Dr. Reed’s testimony. 

Dr. Reed, are there some services that are better suited to using 

shared spectrum than others? 

Mr. REED. That is a good question. Certainly with shared spectrum, if you are a secondary user, your access may not be as reliable as with licensed spectrum, but there are certain types of traffic, for instance, video. And video is the big growth area in wireless 

communications right now. It is dominating the internet and is 

going to dominate wireless transmission. Those sort of applications 

are not real time sensitive because you can store it up during the 

times in which you don’t have the link. You just deplete from your 

memory. So there are better applications. Some applications are 

better than others. 

Ms. MATSUI. Well, can you think of scenarios in which spectrum 

clearing through reallocation may be preferred? 

Mr. REED. Yes, I believe that there should be licensed spectrum. 

There should be unlicensed spectrum and there should be shared 

spectrum. Now where the boundaries lie, of course, that is going to 

be controversial. Licensed spectrum does have its benefits in terms 

of being able to guarantee the quality of service. But on the other 

hand, shared spectrum also has a role. 

One of the use areas for shared spectrum is kind of like the overflow spectrum. If an operator’s network is being impacted, they 

could always go to their shared spectrum reserve to help fill those 

needs. 

Ms. MATSUI. That is the combination you are talking about? 

Mr. REED. Yes, it is like with energy as well, where the power 

company can turn off your—— 

Ms. MATSUI. Right. I understand that my time is up. So thank 

you very much. 

Mr. LATTA. The gentlelady’s time has expired and the chair now 

recognizes the gentleman from Texas, the Chairman Emeritus of 

the full committee, Mr. Barton, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. BARTON. Thank you. A lot of times at these kind of hearings 

we have to ask political questions and sometimes we have to ask 

‘‘got you’’ questions. But sometimes we can actually ask fact-based 

questions and admit, at least in my case, I don’t know anything. 

So I am going to ask some fact-based questions because I don’t understand spectrum. 

I made Ds in electrical engineering. I am an engineer. But I 

made Ds in electrical engineering. I made Cs and Bs in physics. I 

am old enough to remember the old radio dials. You had 600 on 

the low end or 500 and 1600 on the high end. I never understood 

the difference between AM and FM. But I am trying to get a handle on this spectrum and I understand we have two engineers here 

that know all there is to know about it. 

So in this room, how much spectrum is there right now? Is there 

an infinite amount of spectrum? Or is there a finite amount of 

spectrum? 

52 

Mr. ROBERSON. I will grab that. There is definitely a finite 

amount of spectrum. 

Mr. BARTON. Finite. 

Mr. ROBERSON. Which is the challenge. It is divided up into frequencies, but it is very finite. It is temporal in that it is reusable, 

the spectrum that we have now, we have again now. So it is reusable. 

Mr. BARTON. That confuses me. 

Mr. ROBERSON. The spectrum is the thing. But its use is temporal. So if you are using it at one moment, it can be used again 

a few moments later. 

Mr. BARTON. If we didn’t have the FCC, would it make any difference how much spectrum was used in this room? I mean—— 

Mr. ROBERSON. It depends on its use. Yes, it would definitely 

make a difference in how much is used because of the spectrum 

being allocated for purposes like the AM radio that you were describing, that is a band of spectrum, a set of frequencies that are 

allocated for a specific purpose. There is another band allocated 

for—or several—for television, for FM, for cellular it has several 

bands. But this is the allocation—— 

Mr. BARTON. What I am trying to get at is why we need to worry 

about this? Is there at any given moment in time can only one 

broadcaster or user be using a specific, to use your term, band of 

spectrum? 

Mr. ROBERSON. Yes, only one at any given time. 

Mr. BARTON. OK. If I am on the 600 band spectrum in this room, 

can somebody in the next room also be on the 600 band of spectrum and in the next room? 

Mr. ROBERSON. Yes. Under the right circumstances so that you 

don’t have power that leaks across room boundaries. 

Mr. BARTON. See, I don’t understand that. What does that mean, 

‘‘don’t have power’’? 

Mr. ROBERSON. You do actually understand it. 

Mr. BARTON. I am glad you think that. 

Mr. ROBERSON. No, no, no. I will explain it very quickly as I do 

to my classes. If you throw a rock at a pond, it creates—— 

Mr. BARTON. I am not a college level student. I am a first grade 

level student. 

Mr. ROBERSON. That is why I threw rocks in ponds. 

Mr. BARTON. OK. I have thrown rocks in ponds. 

Mr. ROBERSON. Yes. And when you throw a rock in the pond 

there was a big wave close to the rock, right? 

Mr. BARTON. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ROBERSON. And as you got out to the edge of the lake, there 

was almost no wave motion at all. 

Mr. BARTON. I never saw that far, but I will take your word for 

it. 

Mr. ROBERSON. The notion is there is a finite amount of energy 

that is inserted at a point. 

Mr. BARTON. OK. 

Mr. ROBERSON. As you expand, the incremental amount of energy seen at any point on the circumstance of that is diminished. 

Mr. BARTON. OK. 

53 

Mr. ROBERSON. So in this room, you can have a finite amount 

of—— 

Mr. BARTON. So a one watt radio station wouldn’t go very far. 

But a 100,000 watt radio station—— 

Mr. ROBERSON. I told you you knew a lot about it. 

Mr. BARTON. Well, I do remember what a watt is. That is a 

measurement of power. So I got that. Some of my colleagues, they 

won’t admit that they don’t know either. They are nodding their 

heads. 

Mr. ROBERSON. No, but you have hit a very important point. You 

really have hit an extremely important point. If you use low power, 

you can reuse that spectrum over and over again. 

Mr. BARTON. Lots of people can do low power. 

Mr. ROBERSON. Lots and lots of people as long as they are geographically separated. 

Mr. BARTON. OK, now last question because my time is about 

to—is any of this spectrum better? I keep saying the premium spectrum. What makes spectrum better than other spectrum? 

Mr. ROBERSON. This is the point that Dr. Reed made around 

propagation. Different spectrum at different points propagates better through the wall, for instance. Some spectrum will go right 

through the wall and not even see it. Other spectrum will be absolutely blocked by that wall. 

Mr. BARTON. So best spectrum is more propagated, if that is a 

word? 

Mr. ROBERSON. Depending on its purpose. It has to be fit for purpose. 

Mr. BARTON. OK. 

Mr. ROBERSON. For television, it propagates through walls. 

Mr. BARTON. That is a good thing. 

Mr. ROBERSON. Or if you want to keep the information enclosed 

in this room, you want to use a very high spectrum, high band of 

spectrum that doesn’t propagate through the walls because you 

wish to contain the spectrum and you wish to reuse it. That is 

where the millimeter waves come in because they don’t propagate 

well at all because water and oxygen absorb that energy. 

Mr. BARTON. OK. I learned a little bit. Thank you for humoring 

me, but I really don’t understand it and the only way to learn is 

to ask questions. 

Ms. ESHOO. I give you enormous credit because around here people don’t want to acknowledge that they don’t know and there is 

nothing wrong with that. 

Mr. BARTON. Well, if this were oil and gas, I wouldn’t admit that. 

Ms. ESHOO. I got you. I think it is very important what you said. 

Mr. LATTA. We appreciate the gentleman’s line of questions and 

his time has expired. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from 

Ohio, Mr. Johnson, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to our 

panelists for joining us today. 

You know, in August, the Office of Management and Budget 

made a variety of suggestions about the spectrum relocation including the idea that the FCC should be permitted to ‘‘charge modest 

licensing device or database administration fees’’ in order to ‘‘facilitate greater unlicensed access.’’ 

54 

Now I support efforts to open additional and appropriate bands 

for unlicensed use, but I am firmly opposed to proposals to impose 

a tax on devices that use unlicensed spectrum. As the internet of 

things grows and more and more devices are connected, that could 

expand the tax man’s reach to not just my phone, but my car, my 

refrigerator, my thermostat, and all sorts of other devices around 

the home that utilize spectrum. I think that is a terrible idea. 

So for the panel, what are your views on the administration’s 

proposal to tax devices that use unlicensed spectrum? And we can 

just go down the row there. 

Mr. BERENBROICK. Thank you for the question. So Public Knowledge has not taken a position on that question specifically, but I 

might be speaking out of turn here. I would imagine that when we 

do take the position that we will not support taxes on devices, on 

unlicensed devices. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you. Dr. Roberson? 

Mr. ROBERSON. I am not actually familiar with the proposal, but 

it doesn’t sound like a very good idea to me in that you wish to 

keep the airways as open as you can and this would seem highly 

restrictive, especially with the billions of devices that are likely to 

be out there in the internet of things world. I don’t even know how 

you would administer it. 

Mr. REED. First of all, let me say why funds are needed. In the 

spectrum sharing regiment, it is like going to a library. You check 

out a library book and it can be recalled and it is a way to 

deconflicting and managing the spectrum. So there are costs. 

Now that said, I really don’t have an opinion on whether it 

should be a tax or not. There may be other ways to do that. But 

definitely there are expenses involved. 

Mr. JOHNSON. I understand there are expenses. I certainly agree 

with that. But what I don’t agree with, is that spectrum users in 

rural areas across the country that are increasingly dependent 

upon access through devices for connection to the internet, to the 

cloud, to services, are going to pay the lion’s share of these kinds 

of costs. 

Dr. Reed and Professor Roberson, in its progress reports, NTIA 

has identified 245 megahertz of spectrum they have repurposed in 

the last five years. However, when we examine that a little more 

closely, much of this spectrum was made available through changes 

in service rules or mandated by legislation. So do you believe that 

NTIA is making sufficient progress in independently identifying 

and repurposing bands of spectrum? And how can we help improve 

that process? 

Mr. Roberson, do you want to go first? 

Mr. ROBERSON. Sure. This is an enormously challenging area 

identifying the spectrum. I provided in my testimony some of the 

areas that can be pursued. I think this is something NTIA must 

provide leadership on and must put out effectively a funnel, as you 

would think of a sales funnel of much more spectrum that can be 

pursued and then per the conversation that we have been having, 

much more research is needed to choose the best of those spectrum 

options and then to rigorously pursue how to make those available. 

Mr. REED. Actually, I visited NTIA as part of National Academy’s 

evaluation of their lab facilities there, the folks who go out and 

55 

make those measurements. They are good technically, but the leadership until recently that is, they have new leadership now. The 

leadership wasn’t all that great. And they were under funded and 

somewhat bureaucratic. So they have had their challenges. 

That said, given the tools that they had, they did well. They just 

should have had more. They should have had more time and resources to do some of the upfront measurements at 3.5 gigahertz. 

In fact, I even asked them that question. Why didn’t you guys do 

this? And they said we just didn’t have the budget. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. LATTA. The gentleman’s time has expired and he yields back. 

The chair now recognizes the gentlelady from North Carolina for 

5 minutes. 

Mrs. ELLMERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to our panelists for being here today on this issue. 

Mr. Berenbroick, did I—— 

Mr. BERENBROICK. That is perfect. 

Mrs. ELLMERS. OK, perfect. Thank you. Because it sounds just 

like it looks, so good. You mentioned in your testimony the importance of unlicensed spectrum. And in particular, the unlicensed underlay. Can you elaborate on this concept and why it would be a 

potential solution as a reform to spectrum policy? 

Mr. BERENBROICK. Sure. And I have been saying that all my life 

that it looks like it sounds, so I am glad to be validated on the 

record. 

So the idea of the unlicensed underlay, basically there is consensus that there is a need for more unlicensed spectrum with the 

internet of things coming with the amount of traffic that is being 

offloaded on to unlicensed networks. A federal underlay would 

allow for unlicensed use in bands where federal users reside. The 

idea would also be to make sure that critical federal functions, for 

instance, things like national security functions are protected, to 

take all interference mitigation steps that are necessary and also 

to ask the FCC to figure out how would this work? Is this workable? Is this possible? Which bands are right for spectrum sharing? 

And doing that would potentially open up, Chairman Walden 

mentioned this at the start of the hearing, 18 percent of the best 

spectrum is allocated for federal use. It would allow for unlicensed 

use of that spectrum which, as the other panelists have mentioned, 

a lot of that spectrum sometimes is—I am not going to say it is unused, but it is used intermittently. And so it would put that spectrum to use more efficiently. 

Mrs. ELLMERS. I have another question as we are moving towards the 5G and basically the interest from the American leadership on that, the question I have is, won’t this require a great deal 

of the greenfield spectrum, otherwise bands that are not being used 

for 4G. And won’t the spectrum need to be a mix of low, middle, 

and high frequencies? And what has been identified so far if there 

has been? 

Mr. BERENBROICK. I can take the part of the question regarding 

the need for low, middle, high frequencies. I think these gentlemen 

might have more concrete thoughts on the specific bands that 

should be allocated. In the FCC’s mobile competition report which 

came out in the summer, spring or summer of 2014, they identified 

56 

that for licensed networks to operate, the networks need a mix of 

low band and high band spectrum. 

As Mr. Roberson mentioned earlier in his discussion about spectrum propagation characteristics, low band spectrum goes further 

distances. It goes through walls. With high band spectrum, it can 

carry more capacity. So for networks that operate in both rural and 

urban areas, for networks that have intensive uses for mobile 

broadband coverage, a mix of that spectrum is necessary. 

Mrs. ELLMERS. Mr. Roberson and Dr. Reed, would you like to 

comment as well? 

Mr. ROBERSON. Absolutely. And I would agree that you have to 

have the mix of spectrum. In my earlier testimony, I talked about 

milliliter wave which is brand new spectrum. It’s high band spectrum, but it has tremendous limitations. So it has to be a mix of 

the two capacity of the higher bands, the coverage in the lower 

bands, and we will need to identify new spectrum in both those 

bands to achieve our goals for the fifth generation. And that is critical so that we maintain our U.S. position in that space. 

Historically, as generations move first, second, third, the leadership has shifted from U.S. to Europe to Asia back to the U.S. now. 

It needs to stay in the U.S. 

Mrs. ELLMERS. Dr. Reed. 

Mr. REED. Yes, I think that we are not unique here in the U.S. 

in terms of facing this spectrum crunch. However, we have been a 

bit more innovative in the way that we approach this problem. So 

I don’t think we are going to find much greenfield spectrum below 

3 gigahertz. It is probably going to be shared mostly. 

Mrs. ELLMERS. Thank you and I yield back the remainder of my 

time. 

Mr. LATTA. The gentlelady yields back and the chair now recognizes the gentleman from Kentucky, Mr. Guthrie, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GUTHRIE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I know that my 

friend from Missouri got to go earlier because he is here at the 

gavel, but I want to point—he took out Mr. Lance with a jug of 

water, so he should have been penalized for his order of the way 

to go. 

Mr. LONG. I would have done that earlier if I had known I would 

get rid of him that easy. 

Mr. GUTHRIE. I am working with Ms. Matsui, the sponsor of the 

bill, and I didn’t know a lot about spectrum, still don’t know a lot 

about spectrum, no more than I did. And the only way I knew the 

difference in AM and FM, my dad had a Pinto that only had AM 

radio. So that means if I was riding with him, we had to listen to 

country music. So it was just the way things were. 

And Mr. Berenbroick, thanks for coming. I know you grew up in 

Radcliff which is the home of Fort Knox, so we always appreciate 

that. When people come to Kentucky they want to drive by and see 

the gold vault. What you can see from the scene from Goldfinger, 

you can see from the road. So it is an interesting place. 

We started talking about—I know nobody talked about incentives. That is kind of where I wanted to go with it. But when we 

started on doing the bill, the question was we can pass a bill and 

say mandate that you release spectrum. You really have to have 

a willing—actually, we worked well with the Executive Branch on 

57 

this with Secretary Strickland. But you really have to—either 

somebody is going to be there managing the reports or you can 

incentivize. So we came up with the idea of incentivizing. In the 

bill is one percent. 

Do you think that is adequate? Should incentives be based on the 

type of spectrum they move forward? Is one percent sufficient from 

what you would see? I mean how would you use the financial incentives? 

Another thing, agencies came before us and said well, if it is just 

going to replace money we already have, we lose the incentive. So 

then we talked about does it go above— does it help them relieve 

some sequester issues by generating more money for the Treasury 

by relieving spectrum? So just kind of your thoughts on spectrum. 

And then I have one other question that I want to ask Mr. 

Berenbroick on how we incentivize these agencies to actually do it 

through financial incentives. 

Mr. BERENBROICK. Sure. As I answered earlier, I do think the financial incentives can be a way to get those agencies to either relinquish spectrum in some cases or to figure out how to relocate 

and use other bands. 

Mr. GUTHRIE. There is a lot of work to do. I just thought you just 

turned a dial. But it is not. 

Mr. BERENBROICK. It is not. 

Mr. GUTHRIE. I have learned that. 

Mr. BERENBROICK. And so going to your question of how much 

incentive is enough, I think that question is going to be fact specific 

to each individual agency. I think different—some agencies might 

simply decide look, whatever the amount is, we are not going to 

move. Other agencies might decide for a specific amount, we would 

be interested in moving. So I think it is going to be agency specific 

and mission specific, because remember, we want to make sure 

that the agencies can continue to do their mission, but we also 

want to make sure that we are freeing up spectrum and using it 

in the most efficient way possible. 

Mr. GUTHRIE. So I guess my question is so setting it at one percent, your suggesting it would have to be flexible because in order 

to get what we want out of the legislation, one percent may not 

incentivize someone, but it may incentivize someone else. Who do 

you think should do that, NTIA, OMB? Because unless we have to 

change the law every time we come up with this issue. That is how 

we—— 

Mr. BERENBROICK. I think NTIA and OMB are the agencies that 

come to mind, but there could be somebody else. I mean I would 

imagine the FCC would also want to think about what the best 

way to relocate those users is and what the use of that spectrum 

would be after relocation. I imagine it would be a conversation between the appropriate committees and those agencies. 

Mr. GUTHRIE. I am going to go to my second question. So I had 

a semester of electrical engineering before I realized that wasn’t for 

me. So I never could understand it. The right hand rules was about 

all I got out of it, but there is a big debate about sharing. So like 

you have emergency sharing, so to make an example simple, I said 

well, it is like this. We don’t build highways for ambulances. We 

58 

build highways that people use and when ambulances use them, 

we get out of the way. 

I was just in New York City and sometimes it gets crowded and 

I had to get out of the way and I almost got up on the sidewalk 

so an ambulance could get by. So I mean it is easier on I–65, we 

pull over and the ambulance goes by. Sometimes it gets crowded. 

Will sharing really work? That is the physics question or the electrical engineering question. And can people just get out of the way 

when emergencies need to use it or would it be too disruptive to 

share? 

Mr. REED. Actually, I like to think of it in terms of E–Z Pass as 

well. Sometimes you really need to get to that location and you 

need to get there quickly and you are willing to pay that $5, who 

knows how much, just to get there. And the way that we have set 

up sharing is a prioritized basis and those who at least in the 3F 

gigahertz band who go to the auction and get primary access, they 

will have that freedom. 

I think it is possible for us to manage spectrum and to be able 

to deconflict legacy users to get out of the way, for instance, of a 

military radar system or a satellite uplink when the time is needed. 

Mr. GUTHRIE. Would you see a constant disruption like I am 

watching—well, everybody is OK if we have a battle or something 

is going on, but is it just little things will always be disrupting or 

something can be managed? 

Mr. REED. It just depends upon the situation. I think at 3.5 

gigahertz, I think there is going to be very little disruption. There 

are not that many federal systems out there. There are not that 

many ships that have that high-powered radar system, the SPY– 

1 or the SPIN–43 radar systems. 

Mr. GUTHRIE. So even if like a hurricane is coming and emergency needs it, sometimes you need to just watch the broadcast because of the hurricane, watching the weather and the news on your 

device. So it kind of plays in it. I know I went over my time. 

Mr. ROBERSON. If I could just very quickly, I think technology 

does solve this problem. The sophistication of the prioritization that 

exists today absolutely allows this sharing to take place and to 

take place very efficiently. 

Mr. GUTHRIE. Thank you. I yield back. 

Mr. LATTA. The chairman yields back and the chair now recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Olson, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. OLSON. I thank the chair and welcome to all three witnesses. 

My first question is for Dr. Reed and Professor Roberson. What 

steps are federal agencies taking to improve spectrum efficiency 

particularly in the bands traditionally viewed as most viable for 

commercial use? Big question. Your thoughts, Dr. Reed? 

Mr. REED. Well, in the case of the AWS–3 transition, they are 

moving some of those systems out and they are consolidating these 

federal systems together in a different band. So they will be more 

efficient users of the spectrum that they have. There will, however, 

still need to be some legacy systems that operate there because of 

the amount of time and money it takes to move those systems out. 

And there are some technologies that can help with this. Frankly, 

I don’t think we know how well they will help at this point. Again, 

59 

it gets back to the R&D issue. But I think that we will be able to 

leverage some of the great properties of long-term evolution, LTE 

4th Generation cellular. It is actually quite robust interference. So 

I am optimistic we will get good spectrum efficiencies. 

Mr. OLSON. Thank you. Professor Roberson. Your thoughts, sir. 

Mr. ROBERSON. Sure. There are a number of initiatives that are 

in the works, but these need to be expedited, so I will give you a 

balanced view. There are many things going on. Dr. Reed spoke to 

some number of them. But there is so much more that could be 

done. The way in which spectrum is managed within an organization like the Department of Defense is still very inefficient at this 

point. They know how to move from the inefficient approach, very 

human-centric approach to an approach that is much more richly 

supported by technology and by data. But they have not been able 

to move that. They have vast systems and they have increasing 

needs as well. But the opportunity is there. It just needs to happen 

and happen more quickly. And this would apply to many others 

than the Department of Defense. 

Mr. OLSON. And to follow up on Mr. Guthrie’s line of questioning 

for you, Dr. Reed, when evaluating potential bands to be 

repurposed whether through auction or sharing, what are the most 

important considerations for us to keep in mind? How can we help 

and how can we hurt? 

Mr. REED. Good one. Certainly policy is going to make a huge impact. Being able to move quickly, but policy needs to be grounded 

in good engineering. And if we don’t do our upfront engineering, 

then we could end up in a mess, granted. 

The committee and the regulatory agencies have been moving remarkably fast compared to the historic performance and I applaud 

them for that and I think that that should continue. I think making sure that there is a lot of transparency in the overall process, 

that it is not DOD versus AT&T. We don’t want to go there. They 

need to work as a team. So those are my thoughts. 

Mr. ROBERSON. I think the biggest thing is the application of 

data, the application of technology. There is so much inertia in the 

rules and regulatory processes that we have today that overcome 

that and to move into the world that, where for instance, the spectrum observatory that we have put up at Illinois Tech. You can see 

the use of the spectrum. You have that data logged for years of 

time. Being able to apply data, real data, not theory, not worst case 

analysis, but real data to the problems and move things forward 

is really critical. And I think your part of this is to insist that conjecture not be the way in which decisions are made. It is rather 

based on absolutely solid research data that is available that concretely describes the situation and the opportunities that are in 

front of us. 

Mr. OLSON. Thanks. I will have a question for the record, but one 

final informal poll. Houston Astros or Kansas City Royals. Any 

thoughts about that, guys? 

Mr. BERENBROICK. St. Louis Cardinals. 

Mr. OLSON. Thank you. I yield back. 

Mr. LATTA. The gentleman’s time has expired. Really expired. 

And he yields back. And on behalf of Chairman Walden and also 

for the gentlelady, the ranking member from California and myself, 

60 

we thank you very much for your testimony today. And seeing no 

further business to come before the committee, we stand adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:11 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

[Material submitted for inclusion in the record follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. FRED UPTON

There’s no question that freeing up additional spectrum for commercial use is a 

vital step in ensuring America’s continued leadership in technology and innovation. 

Congress, the administration, industry, and public interest groups are all in agreement that there is a need for a great deal more spectrum to meet demand for important services and technologies. 

Our federal agencies are the biggest single user of spectrum, much of which is 

devoted to important work and operations. But surely there are ways to invest in 

our agencies and improve systems to ensure that they are using spectrum in the 

most efficient way and with the best equipment. Getting agencies to make these 

changes can be difficult. It requires federal users to take on additional work without 

compromising their core missions—a difficult sell. One way to encourage agencies 

to make this kind of investment of time and resources is to provide them with a 

financial incentive for relinquishing unused or unneeded spectrum. Reimbursement 

for the spectrum they give up can help to further their mission in other ways. The 

bill put forward by Representatives Guthrie and Matsui will be an important step 

in this process. 

The committee is also considering a discussion draft of a bill to identify additional 

bands of spectrum that could be made available for consumer use. Spectrum has 

helped transform the daily lives of folks in Michigan and across the country—giving 

us the ability to stay connected with personal devices today that were once unimaginable just a decade ago. While we have done a great deal through hearings, 

whitepapers, and legislation to promote the availability of spectrum, there must be 

a consistent and predictable supply to fuel competition and innovation to pave the 

way for continued advancement. NTIA and the FCC have done a great deal of work 

to identify potential sources for spectrum to be reassigned. I am optimistic that we 

can do our part in crafting legislation to provide additional structure to this process 

and give these agencies the tools needed to succeed. 

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