Federal Communications Commission FCC 12-55 STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN JULIUS GENACHOWSKI Re: Improving Spectrum Efficiency Through Flexible Channel Spacing and Bandwidth Utilization for Economic Area-based 800 MHz Specialized Mobile Radio Licensees, WT Docket No. 12-64; Request for Declaratory Ruling that the Commission’s Rules Authorize Greater than 25 kHz Bandwidth Operations in the 817-824/862-869 MHz Band,WT Docket No. 11-110. This is another action forward in our work to ensure that mobile broadband is an ongoing, strong driver of economic growth and opportunity in the United States. Mobile broadband is changing the world for the better, and the U.S. is leading the way. We have now regained global leadership in mobile. American-designed apps and services are being adopted faster than any others, both inside and outside our borders. After years of seeing countries developing popular mobile applications ahead of us, the U.S. mobile innovation economy is now the envy of the world. And we are ahead of the world in deploying 4G mobile broadband at scale – with 64% of the world’s 4G LTE subscribers here in the U.S. To maintain and to extend our leadership, we have challenges to address, and a major priority of the Commission remains addressing the challenges to unleashing mobile innovation and making sure America continues to lead the world in mobile. To that end, we are pursuing a strong Mobile Action Plan, which focuses on five core elements: freeing up new spectrum for licensed and unlicensed use; removing barriers to mobile infrastructure build-out and mobile broadband spectrum use; driving greater efficiency in spectrum, networks, devices; promoting competition; and empowering consumers. Already, we’re unleashing at least 25 megahertz of spectrum in the wireless communications (WCS) band by removing technical rules that had impeded use. We’re in process to remove regulatory barriers to enable 40 megahertz of satellite spectrum to be used for land-based mobile broadband. And we became the first country in the world to open up the white spaces for new and innovative unlicensed uses. We’ve also become the first country to authorize voluntary incentive auctions, designed to unleash significant amounts of prime spectrum for mobile broadband. Today’s order is part of our action plan. We are removing outdated rules that are serving as barriers to spectrum use for mobile broadband in the 800 MHz band. Specifically, the order will allow Enhanced Specialized Mobile Radio licensees in this band, such as Sprint and SouthernLINC, to operate across contiguous channels without a rigid channel spacing requirement or a bandwidth limitation. This will enable 2the transition of their networks to CDMA and LTE technologies. The end result permits flexibility that will enable the use of additional spectrum for mobile broadband, thus creating more investment, more innovation, and more benefits flowing to the American people. And we are accomplishing this goal while ensuring that important public safety uses in the 800 MHz band are protected from interference. This item promotes mobile broadband, and modifies outdated rules to enable efficient and flexible spectrum use. I want to thank the Wireless Bureau for their work on this item.