FCC Adopts Notice Seeking Input on Offshore Spectrum Use

At its June 8 public meeting, the FCC adopted a Notice of Inquiry on possible future demands and use cases for offshore spectrum. The Notice seeks comment on spectrum rights models and initial license assignment mechanisms for offshore commercial or private maritime or aeronautical uses. 

The Commission has done right by opening of the proceeding on offshore spectrum and adopting the Notice. The agency has a responsibility to promote valuable usage of spectrum by the American public. And the Notice can help serve that purpose. Hopefully, the Notice will yield insights and information about how the agency can ensure that offshore spectrum can be put to its highest and best use. By building a solid factual record, the Commission potentially could pursue steps to make offshore spectrum more widely available for licensed and unlicensed uses. 

In November 2021, Free State Foundation President Randolph May and I published a Perspectives from FSF Scholars paper titled "Constitutional Considerations for Proper Spectrum Policy: A Preference for Private Property Rights and Market Competition." That Perspectives offers a high-level approach to federal spectrum policy that ought to be applied and adapted as circumstances reasonably require to offshore spectrum uses as well as to onshore uses.