US senators on Friday unveiled legislation to shift spectrum from federal agencies to the mobile industry, which would provide more capacity for smartphones and other devices that rely on wireless Internet access.

A draft of the bill from the Senate Commerce Committee proposes "a system of financial incentives for federal agencies to give up more of their underused spectrum," The Wall Street Journal wrote. Agencies would receive up to 25 percent of auction proceeds from spectrum sold to industry. The agencies could also lease their spectrum licenses to companies, or share spectrum with private industry in exchange for financial incentives.

A recent budget deal would require the government to identify 30MHz of government-controlled spectrum that could be auctioned off by 2024. The draft bill circulated Friday would boost that amount to 50MHz. This would come from bands below the 3GHz range; a portion could go toward unlicensed use instead of commercial licenses.

"Another provision in the draft would codify the Obama administration’s long-term goal of clearing out 500 megahertz of spectrum by 2020, to maintain momentum for the effort after President Barack Obama leaves office in early 2017," the Journal wrote.

The draft bill's full text is online courtesy of The Washington Post.

Separately, the Federal Communications Commission is planning a major auction in early 2016 to move desirable spectrum in the 600MHz range from TV broadcasters to wireless carriers. That could end up being the last big auction for low-band spectrum for "decades to come," according to T-Mobile US.

But while low-band spectrum such as the 600MHz airwaves is best for covering long distances and penetrating building walls and obstacles, the industry and FCC say that next-generation networks may make greater use of extremely high frequencies in order to dramatically boost speeds. Under those plans, spectrum between 24GHz and 71GHz could be used for mobile broadband.