Hundt To Senate: Clear 700-800 MHz Spectrum

Hundt To Senate: Clear 700-800 MHz Spectrum
Congress could advance broadband acceptance and use in the United States dramatically and immediately through wireless technology without completely re-writing telecom rules, a former FCC chairman told a Senate panel today. ¶ Reed Hundt, former commission chairman, told members of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation that the commission could vastly facilitate implementation and acceptance of high-speed wireless broadband by simply writing a letter to the FCC asking that the agency re-examine the digital television signal threshold figures that enables television stations to hang onto spectrum in the UHF spectrum for analog broadcast. He also said Congress should ask the FCC to look at secondary use of broadcast spectrum in areas where it is underused and to issue an order asking that unlicensed devices be allowed to operate in television broadcast spectrum at locations and times when the spectrum isn't being used. The commission currently has an inquiry into secondary use in 700 MHz. [Wireless Week][emphasis added -- Dennis]