[MilCom] Fwd: [MilRadioComms] Diminishing Government Frequency Spectrum

[AllanStern at aol.com]

From: allanstern at aol.com
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Sent: 5/15/2013 5:31:08 P.M. Eastern Daylight  Time
Subj: [MilRadioComms] Official Addresses Diminishing Government  Frequency 
Spectrum


     
 
Official Addresses Diminishing Government Frequency  Spectrum
By Amaani Lyle
American Forces Press Service 
ROSSLYN, Va., May 15, 2013 - The Defense Department must adjust amid  
shrinking bandwidth and budgets, a Defense Information Systems Agency  official 
said during a National Spectrum Management Association  conference here 
today. 
Stuart Timerman, Defense Spectrum Organization director, said DISA  and 
Pentagon officials seek solutions to better manage the finite  resource that 
enables warfighters to use technologies such as radar,  navigation, weapons 
and communications systems. 
Frequencies once reserved strictly for government use have been  
transferred to solely commercial use through executive and congressional  action, 
Timerman said. This creates a challenge for the Defense  Department, given its 
"huge appetite for information," he added. 
"The federal government, including the DOD, has given up more than  237 
megahertz of spectrum with the potential loss of another 500  megahertz," 
Timerman said. "We have to be able to, through the use of  technology, 
accommodate the needs of the commercial entities ... [and]  continue to operate in the 
same spectrum [to] accommodate our warfighter  needs." 
Among the more pressing challenges is the need to develop policies  and 
technological standards that use spectrum more efficiently, he said,  while 
ensuring the regulatory framework remains flexible enough to  accommodate and 
promote emerging technologies. 
"It's like [losing] forest land, but we can't regrow trees," Timerman  
explained. "If we continue to do things that carve out spectrum, we no  longer 
can have innovative ideas in certain areas." 
And though auctions for spectrum space bring money into a general  fund for 
the government, the highest bidder gets exclusive use to those  frequencies 
as dictated by Federal Communications Commission rules,  Timerman said. 
Long-term strategies involve the development of active  programs such as the 
Global Electromagnetic Spectrum Information System,  which allows DOD to 
better manage frequency use for its mission. 
"The goal is to have it do near-real-time frequency management of the  
spectrum so we optimize our use of [it] for the mission," he said. 
Short-term steps, he added, include DISA-generated tools that move or  
compress current allotted frequency. But spectrum, Timerman asserted,  also 
relies on physics, namely operating in certain optimal frequency  ranges. 
"If I'm in a heavily forested area ... and I want to communicate out  of 
the canopy, ... I have to be on specific frequencies or I can't do  it," he 
explained. "The foliage will actually block the signal." 
With many of the military's and other entities' needs focused on the  same 
general frequency band within the spectrum, "we have to look at  where we 
want to go as a nation," Timerman said. DOD will continue to  need greater 
throughput, more bandwidth and more spectrum in the years  to come, he added.



 

AL  STERN Satellite Beach  FL
AllanStern at aol.com
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