Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Airwave Transfer Debate Renewed

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2003 14:54:03 -0500

Airwave Transfer Debate Renewed

Bush administration seeks to give military spectrum to mobile phones. The Pentagon
raises national security concerns.

By Jube Shiver Jr., Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON -- With the U.S. waging a war in
Iraq that relies heavily on wireless communications, a
controversial Bush administration plan to transfer
valuable airwaves from the military to the mobile phone
industry is coming under new scrutiny.

Accommodating growing consumer demand for
high-speed mobile Internet access -- as well as for
ordinary cell phone calls -- is a crucial challenge for the
White House. The administration is trying to balance
the wireless industry's voracious appetite for new
spectrum capacity against national security concerns.
There is also a potential government windfall that
would come from the sale of billions of dollars' worth
of military airwaves to mobile phone carriers.

"Spectrum is the lifeblood of our military," Steven
Price, deputy assistant secretary of Defense for
spectrum, told a congressional panel Tuesday. Price
pointed out that in the war in Iraq, "we would not have
been able to pinpoint and accurately target enemy
leadership" without the wireless connections that link
global positioning satellites to precision-guided bombs
and missiles.

The wireless industry is eager for the military to vacate
a slice of its spectrum, which is adjacent to commercial
wireless spectrum and is therefore economical for firms
to exploit.

With carriers unveiling a new generation of mobile phones complete with color
screens, digital cameras and faster Internet access, advanced wireless services
could spur $500 billion in economic growth and create 400,000 jobs over the
next decade, Steven K. Berry, a senior vice president at the Washington-based
Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Assn.,told the House panel.

The Bush plan calls for the Defense Department, which uses the earmarked
airwaves for military satellite communications, to move some of its
communications to an undeveloped part of the spectrum reserved for satellite
use.

The White House didn't return a call seeking comment.

Administration officials have said they are sympathetic to the Pentagon's
concerns but believe they can accomplish the airwave transfer without
compromising national security.

The telecommunications subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce
Committee is weighing a bill that would establish a trust fund of about $1 billion
to compensate the military for the move. It would be funded by proceeds from
the sale of the airwaves relinquished by the Pentagon. Sen. John McCain
(R-Ariz.) says he plans to introduce similar legislation in the Senate.

But the Defense Department's Price told the House panel that any relocation of
military airwaves will be more expensive and protracted than envisioned by
lawmakers. He also cautioned that it might hamper the military's ability to
coordinate with allies whose combat communications equipment often operates
on the same frequencies.

"The Department of Defense has been put on the defensive" by the government's
push to wrest more spectrum for cell phone carriers, Price said.

Nancy Victory, an assistant secretary at the Commerce Department's National
Telecommunications and Information Administration, told the House panel
Tuesday that airwaves need not be "limited to defense and homeland security
efforts."

"Wireless has also been a continuing area of growth and innovation for our
economy," she said. "Spectrum must be made available so this growth and
innovation can continue and our economic security can remain strong."

The Pentagon tends to overstate its spectrum needs because it doesn't pay for it,
said Blair Levin, a telecom investment analyst for Legg Mason Wood Walker.

"It's always hard to know reality when you are dealing with the Defense
Department" because it is so secretive, said Levin, a former chief of staff at the
Federal Communications Commission. "But the simple act of putting a price on
Defense Department spectrum would motivate them to be more efficient.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-war-spectrum26mar26,1,370278.story

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