WASHINGTON – House Republicans warned the Federal Communications Commission on Wednesday against giving away scarce airwaves that it could auction to telecommunications companies for use in mobile broadband.

The remarks, which came at a hearing by a House communications subcommittee, took direct aim at one of the top priorities of Julius Genachowski, the F.C.C. chairman: to expand the availability of unlicensed airwaves, or spectrum, in order to open up congested mobile broadband networks and for Wi-Fi hot spots.

In September, the F.C.C. proposed freeing up as much as 12 megahertz of spectrum for those unlicensed uses. The unlicensed space on the electromagnetic spectrum would also be used as “guard bands,” which border segments of airwaves that are used by cellphone companies, broadcasters and other communications entities, in order to limit interferences from other nearby users.

“Unlicensed spectrum has a powerful record of driving innovation, investment and economic growth – hundreds of billions of dollars of value creation for our economy and consumers,” Mr. Genachowski told the committee on Wednesday.

But Representative Greg Walden, an Oregon Republican who is chairman of the subcommittee on communications and technology, said that the law that gave the F.C.C. the ability to conduct “incentive auctions” of newly available spectrum required “maximizing the proceeds from the auction.”

For maximum proceeds, guard bands should be no larger than necessary, Mr. Walden said, adding that the 6 megahertz size proposed by the F.C.C. is unnecessarily fat. As proposed, the airwaves set aside for unlicensed use could forgo $7 billion to $19 billion in potential proceeds, Mr. Walden said.

At least $5 billion of auction proceeds are proposed to be used to help build a nationwide public safety communications network for first responders.

“I support the use of unlicensed spectrum to foster innovation” for relief of congested broadband, Mr. Walden said. “What I cannot support,” he added, “is the unnecessary expansion of unlicensed spectrum in other bands needed for licensed services, especially at the expense of funding for public safety.”

The F.C.C.’s five commissioners, all of whom testified before the subcommittee Wednesday, are split 3-2 along party lines over the issue of unlicensed spectrum. Commissioner Robert M. McDowell, a Republican, said he believed it is “premature” for the commission to reserve newly available airwaves for unlicensed use.

Instead, the commission should conduct further work on its current policy – setting aside the “white spaces” between broadcast television channels for unlicensed use, he said.

“At this early stage in the incentive auction process,” Mr. McDowell said, “it is not apparent that we should stop the progress well under way in the TV white spaces arena to create a solution for a problem – an alleged shortage of unlicensed spectrum in lower spectrum bands – that may never exist.”

The F.C.C.’s plans for unlicensed spectrum received support from Democrats on the subcommittee, including Representative Henry A. Waxman, a California Democrat. Mr. Waxman said issues of how unlicensed spectrum would be set aside and used were settled during its negotiations on the Public Safety and Spectrum Act, which was enacted earlier this year.

“I am troubled by attempts by some to re-litigate issues that were resolved earlier this year, when the bill passed Congress with widespread support,” Mr. Waxman said.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/13/business/republicans-tell-fcc-not-to-give-away-airwaves.html?partner=rss&emc=rss