During a public meeting last week, the FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski announced the formation of a task force to oversee and coordinate the rules and logistics of holding auctions and promoting incentives for broadcasters looking to sell their spectrum.
Ruth Milkman, a former chief with the commission's Wireless Bureau, will oversee the new incentive auction task force. Milkman is being tasked with gathering information and feedback from industry representatives on hotly debated issues like frequency repacking and avoiding signal interference due to co-location of stations. The commission expects to propose a number of rules and suggestions for how the auctions will be handled. It could take until the end of the year (or longer) to finalize the ground rules for reclaiming 120 MHz of spectrum from broadcasters as part of that incentive auction process.
Genachowski called the new task force an unprecedented multi-bureau, multi-office effort.
Industry reports suggest that while the FCC wants to reclaim 120 MHz of spectrum from broadcasters as part of that incentive auction process, coordinating spectrum issues with Canada and Mexico could reduce that available spectrum to 80 MHz or less.
