Spectrum Could Take Over a Decade to Allocate

The CITA —The Wireless Association conducted a study and found that it takes an average of 13 years for spectrum to be deployed after the FCC Order is issued. “Bringing new spectrum into the hands of wireless operators to provide broadband services to U.S. consumers takes a significant amount of time,” the study explains. “The legislative and regulatory processes for the AWS-3 auction began in 2002, the auction ended earlier this year, and commercial deployment is not expected to begin for another two years.” Why does it take so long? The report indicates that Congress’s role in the spectrum allocation process and technical reasons are partly to blame. “Today, the federal government has sole or primary use of between 60-70 percent of spectrum suitable for wireless broadband,” the authors of the study, Thomas Sawanobori and Dr. Robert Roche, wrote. “Given this fact, every administration plays a key role in coordinating agencies’ efforts before, during, and after spectrum reallocation efforts.” The authors also explain that it takes time to get the equipment ready and time to build new cell towers. “Once a new spectrum band has been reallocated, technical issues for each specific band must be planned and validated, such as ‘power levels, band classes, frequency allocation…, compatibility of network equipment and other aspects of networking’ in order to ‘facilitate communications on a global basis,” the report explains.