NTIA and the FCC Office of Engineering and...

NTIA and the FCC Office of Engineering and Technology sought comment on a public-private partnership to create a spectrum test city, as expected (CD July 11 p19). The model city would be used for “demonstrating and evaluating advanced spectrum sharing technologies” in a real-world environment, said Friday’s joint public notice from the agencies (http://bit.ly/1r4jeDZ). The notion of a model city was first put forth by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology in its July 2012 spectrum sharing report. “It is too soon to know what a ‘Model City’ might entail and what aspects would fall within the jurisdiction of the NTIA and/or the FCC,” said OET Chief Julius Knapp in a blog post (http://fcc.us/1r4kaIv). “For example, the model city could be developed as a public-private partnership and implemented under existing provisions such as the FCC’s experimental licensing program. What is clear is that there is a high likelihood that both NTIA and FCC will have a role to play, particularly because most of the spectrum is shared between federal and non-federal users.”