Stakeholder Engagement on the National Spectrum Strategy Band Studies

By: Shiva Goel, Senior Advisor for Spectrum Policy

A key goal of the National Spectrum Strategy, common across all four of its pillars, is to make spectrum policy more evidence driven.  

Developing a common and comprehensive factual understanding about how we use, need, and could potentially expand access to spectrum is critical to meet the Nation’s diverse spectrum requirements while also maintaining trust in the process.  It’s core to the Strategy’s study-first approach to building a spectrum pipeline.

An important part of crafting evidence-based spectrum policy is public engagement. I wanted to give you an update on where our efforts stand on that front.

For the Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (DSS) demonstration, the Department of Defense relaunched Partnering to Advance Trusted and Holistic Spectrum Solutions (PATHSS) to engage key stakeholders.  We are thrilled to partner with and support them on that important joint DSS priority.

For the co-led band studies, the responsibility to establish a multistakeholder forum for non-Federal engagement falls on NTIA – and I can tell you that we’re approaching it with real excitement.  We know just how instrumental that engagement was to the identification of bands to be studied in the Strategy.  We know how much the execution, too, will benefit from those contributions.  Involving diverse stakeholders in our process is pivotal to ensuring that the public has confidence in the work that results.  

So if you’ve been excited to participate, rest assured – you haven’t missed any opportunity to engage. The Implementation Plan builds in time to convene the multistakeholder forum on the band studies while agencies apply for SRF funding (you can read more about that process by visiting the An Update on Implementing the National Spectrum Strategy webpage). We’ll have more details on the when, where, and how to share with you soon.

In the meantime, if you have questions about how the stakeholder forum will operate for the band studies, please feel free to contact us at NSSMeetings. We welcome your input.