[RTC List] U.S. Spectrum policy lurches ahead with 700Mhz auction

[Sean McLaughlin]

Folks -

Biggest recent development in U.S. Spectrum policy played out today with 
the closing of the FCC's auctioning of large swaths of public spectrum 
in the 700Mhz range.  For info, check today's headlines on FCC's site  
http://www.fcc.gov/

Attached are comments from Media Access Project who are following public 
interest issues at the FCC.

And below is an article on the dim news coverage following this public 
policy issue.

-- 
Sean McLaughlin
Executive Director
Access Humboldt
P.O. Box 157, Eureka, CA 95502
tel: 707-476-1798
dir: 707-476-2873
fax: 707-476-1702
cel: 707-616-2381
e: sean at accesshumboldt.net
web:  accesshumboldt.net

"Local Voices Through Community Media"


Is the spectrum just too complex for reporters?
*ASK THIS* | February 21, 2008

*/The electromagnetic spectrum is incredibly valuable, worth perhaps a 
trillion dollars. But its parts are auctioned off cheaply or given away 
by the government to a few knowledgeable people who then make fortunes. 
And the story is just about never reported./*

*By J.H. Snider**
*JH_Snider at ksg.harvard.edu <mailto:JH_Snider at ksg.harvard.edu>**  

The most valuable natural resource of the information age is arguably 
the electromagnetic spectrum, which is used for the wireless 
transmission of information. In February 2008, an FCC auction 
<http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/02/fccs-spectrum-a.html> of 50 MHz 
of spectrum raised $19 billion, the largest single auction of public 
property in U.S. history. Given that there is approximately 3,000 MHz of 
prime spectrum (plus another 297,000 MHz of non-prime spectrum), that 
implies a total spectrum valuation upwards of $1 trillion.

The vast majority of the publicly-owned spectrum either has not been 
auctioned or has been auctioned off incompetently. Instead, it has been 
granted to private interests with no public compensation. Why has this 
story gotten so little press attention?

One reason is that the press is confused and scared by the complexity of 
the issue. To journalists (and most people), spectrum is an invisible 
resource with apparently mysterious and even magical properties. When 
they pick up an FCC rulemaking and observe the highly technical way most 
spectrum debates are framed, their initial fears are only confirmed. 
Rather than embarrass themselves, they would prefer not to cover spectrum.

Another reason is that any given spectrum giveaway tends not to be the 
stuff that could make the front page, even if it were comprehensible. 
Spectrum giveaways tend to take place gradually over decades and across 
hundreds of different FCC rulemakings and tens of thousands of "minor" 
license modifications. A reporter who wanted to cover any one of these 
stories would probably bore his or her readers to death. 

In writing about spectrum, journalists should cut through the technical 
jargon and focus on "who gets what?" TV broadcasters, for example, are 
now seeking to expand their spectrum rights from their grade B contour 
to their designated market area contour (a huge increase in the amount 
of spectrum used for broadcasting), shift from site-based licensing (a 
single transmitter covering a metropolitan market) to geographic service 
area licensing (a cellular architecture like that used by mobile phone 
companies), and force consumers who want to fully benefit from a 
proposed next-generation TV operating system to discard their old 
digital TV sets (the primitive digital TV sets currently on the market).  

They are seeking all these new rights from the FCC without paying a dime 
to the public for them. Each issue is framed, in obscure proceedings, 
without reference to the costs they might impose on the public. Nor is 
the TV broadcast band unique.  Similar maneuvers are taking place in 
almost every band.

To do this type of reporting well and have self-confidence in their own 
work, journalists need to consult a trusted engineer who can translate 
the technical gobbledygook into issues the public can understand.  
Alternatively, just as lawyers are now recruited to do legal reporting 
and doctors to do health reporting, spectrum engineers should be 
recruited to do spectrum reporting. 

Traditionally, the most popular spectrum story had to do with the 
decline of the public-interest obligations licensees used to justify 
their free license rights---the best studied case being the decline of 
the public-interest obligations that radio and TV broadcasters used to 
get their licenses for free beginning in the 1920s. Public-interest 
groups in Washington, DC, still like to focus on that story, perhaps 
because they and the public can understand it with minimal effort.  But 
with the decline of genuine public-interest obligations, which were 
largely eliminated by the 1980s, and the relatively insignificant amount 
of prime spectrum that hasn't already been licensed or that can be 
subject to auctioning, the spectrum lobbyists' game has switched to 
seeking "minor modifications" of existing licenses that enhance their 
spectrum rights. This is a new game, and it requires the help of 
technical experts, not the typical lobbyist, public interest advocate, 
or think tank analyst, to decipher.

In addition, journalists should make the difficulty in covering spectrum 
giveaways---the cover-up, you could call it---a central part of their 
story. Spectrum politics has become a paradigmatic case of modern 
special-interest politics. A relatively small number of players have 
been able to freely acquire public assets worth tens of billions of 
dollars because they can do so under the public radar. The special 
interests that benefit from this system have no incentive to change it, 
so it is unlikely that the aspiring spectrum journalist's job will be 
made easy any time soon. Rather than be intimidated by the obscurity of 
spectrum issues, journalists should recognize that in the obscurity lies 
the key to their story.

The good news is that once the story is framed this way, it is easy to 
understand. It takes even members of Congress only a few minutes to see 
that something is seriously amiss with the government's spectrum 
policy. But they also recognize, after just a few more minutes of 
thought, that this is a classic special-interest issue where pursuing 
the public good brings no political gain. No politician has ever lost 
office as a result of a spectrum scandal; indeed, the worst panderers to 
the spectrum lobby, such as Democrat John Dingell in the House and 
Republican Ted Stevens in the Senate, have often had the most 
illustrious congressional careers. The journalists' job should be to 
change that dynamic, so that by doing good, our politicians can do well.

http://www.niemanwatchdog.org/biographies/images/Snider,-JH.jpg

	

J.H. Snider, a fellow at the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, 
and Public Policy, is the author of /The Art of Spectrum Lobbying: 
America's $480 Billion Spectrum Giveaway, How it Happened, and How to 
Prevent it from Recurring. / 
<http://www.newamerica.net/files/art_of_spectrum_lobbying.pdf>http://www.niemanwatchdog.org/../images/button_more_dark.gif 
<http://www.niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=about.viewcontributors&bioid=227>
E-mail: JH_Snider at ksg.harvard.edu <mailto:JH_Snider at ksg.harvard.edu>


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