Washington — Congress is hearing Americans’ complaints about wireless Internet access and some are calling for change with new legislation to improve spectrum use efficiency. A new Senate bill joins other government initiatives aimed at freeing up underutilized spectrum blocks.
While Internet access has become essential to Americans’ daily life and work, mobile access is a key component of online activity and requires ever increasing amounts of spectrum, a limited natural resource, to provide the capacity for reliable connectivity.
This year the Commerce Department’s NTIA and the FCC have been proactive in finding and repurposing more spectrum for mobile broadband access, and promoting more efficient use of each frequency block, but more federal help is needed. The Computer & Communications Industry Association is a longtime advocate for better Internet access. The following can be attributed to CCIA Vice President Cathy Sloan:
“Senator Cory Booker, D-NJ, has joined with Senator Marco Rubio, R-Fla., in sponsoring bipartisan legislation to ease “last mile” mobile access congestion by making other parts of the 5 GHz frequency band publicly available on an unlicensed basis for Wi-Fi, while avoiding harmful interference with other spectrum users. CCIA appreciates Senators Rubio and Booker’s thoughtful and balanced leadership in support of innovative expansion of broadband connectivity. This initiative complements other positive legislation which Senator Rubio introduced last week to free up more spectrum for licensed mobile wireless networks to use.”