U.S. Senators Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Brian Schatz (D-HI) and U.S. Representatives Doris Matsui (D-CA) and Brett Guthrie (R-KY), announced the introduction of the “Supplementing the Pipeline for Efficient Control of The Resources for Users Making New Opportunities for Wireless (SPECTRUM NOW) Act”. This bill facilitates the speedy deployment of 5G by allowing government agencies to become more efficient and effective in their spectrum use and requiring key mid-band frequencies be made available for commercial wireless use.
Specifically, The SPECTRUM NOW Act creates a pathway for agencies to modify their operations on federally-held spectrum to make those frequencies available for commercial wireless broadband use. The Act allows agencies that have already submitted plans for spectrum reallocations to access unused Spectrum Relocation Fund (SRF) funds that they currently cannot in order to study the possibility of increasing their spectrum efficiency and relocating or sharing their spectrum with commercial users. Without this fix, federal agencies that have currently identified spectrum that could be repurposed would be unable to conduct the engineering research that would result in the spectrum being made available for commercial wireless use.
Highlights of the SPECTRUM NOW Act include:
“Winning the race to 5G is critical to ensuring our nation’s security, economic prosperity, and closing the digital divide in rural America,” said Wicker. “We have already made considerable progress in that race. This legislation would continue that momentum by providing federal agencies the resources needed to make more spectrum available to the commercial wireless industry and other innovative industries.”
“As demand for licensed and unlicensed spectrum continues to grow, we need to find new ways to maximize our country’s spectrum resources,” said Schatz. “By freeing up more licensed spectrum, we can give innovators a strong foundation for building new technologies and help grow an industry that fuels our national economy.”
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The Regulatory Mix Today: SPECTRUM NOW Act Introduced, NIST Report On Cybersecurity and the IOT
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A new National Institute of Standards and Technology publication is intended to help organizations better understand and manage the cybersecurity and privacy risks associated with individual Internet of Things (IoT) devices throughout the devices’ lifecycles. The publication emphasizes what makes managing these risks different for IoT devices in general, including consumer, enterprise, and industrial IoT devices, as compared to conventional information technology (IT) devices. It also provides insights to inform organizations’ risk management processes. It provides three recommendation for addressing the cybersecurity and privacy risk mitigation challenges for IoT devices.
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The Regulatory Mix, Inteserra’s blog of telecom related regulatory activities, is a snapshot of PUC, FCC, legislative, and occasionally court issues that our regulatory monitoring team uncovers each day. Depending on their significance, some items may be the subject of an Inteserra Briefing.