5/23 Letter for the Record, House Energy & Commerce Spectrum Legislative Hearing

The Open Technology Institute at New America and public interest ally Public Knowledge submitted a Letter for the Record to provide our perspective on the bills that the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology (the Subcommittee) will consider at its May 25, 2022 legislative hearing on spectrum policy titled “Strengthening Our Communications Networks: Legislation to Connect and Protect.” An introduction and summary is available below:

Public Knowledge (PK) and New America Open Technology Institute (OTI) write to provide our perspective on the bills that the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology (the Subcommittee) will consider at its May 25, 2022 legislative hearing on spectrum policy titled “Strengthening Our Communications Networks: Legislation to Connect and Protect.” We support continuing the bipartisan approach to spectrum policy that the United States has pursued over the last decade. This approach has emphasized a mix of access regimes, including licensed, unlicensed, and shared (licensed-by-rule) use. Providing diverse opportunities to access spectrum has created a dynamic and vibrant marketplace for wireless communications, ensuring that consumers continue to benefit from a full array of services and that spectrum is allocated efficiently.

H.R. 5486 establishes an automated spectrum sharing regime in Federal bands that only auction winners can utilize. If this bill were to pass, it would prevent commercial ISPs, schools, individual enterprises and other entities that do not need or cannot afford an auctioned license from accessing shared spectrum opportunities. This would, in turn, harm consumers by limiting their choices in the wireless market and increasing the costs of certain services. No public interest purpose is served by prohibiting the use of an automated federal spectrum coordination mechanism to facilitate unlicensed or licensed-by-rule sharing by commercial and Federal users if that is what the FCC, in consultation with NTIA, determines is the highest and best use of a band.

For these reasons, PK and OTI strongly oppose H.R. 5486.

Although the final bill under consideration, H.R. 7783, is a straightforward 18-month extension of the FCC’s auction authority, it misses real opportunities to advance the public interest needs of the telecommunications sector. The bill could address these needs by setting aside proceeds to fund NG911, digital equity, or securing our network equipment. We understand that this bill may represent a compromise to ensure the FCC’s auction authority does not lapse, but we feel it is important to register on the record that such a compromise for the sake of preserving auction authority does not meet the public interest needs of this sector. Consumers of wireless broadband services ultimately pay for the cost of auctions. We believe the Committee should at a minimum establish an authorization that would direct future auction proceeds back into the sector for enumerated public interest purposes, one of which should be investments in digital literacy and adoption that are complementary to pending large investments in broadband infrastructure and affordability.