An advisory council to President Obama today said the US should identify 1,000 MHz of government-controlled spectrum and share it with private industry to meet the country’s growing need for wireless broadband.

The report from the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) says the "traditional practice of clearing and reallocating portions of the spectrum used by Federal agencies is not a sustainable model." Instead, spectrum should be shared. For example, the government might need a chunk of spectrum for communications and radar systems in certain places and at certain times—but "that spectrum can be freed up for commercial purposes at other times and places while respecting the paramount needs of the Federal system."

If put into place, the plan would represent a major change in how the US government uses and distributes spectrum, one that will help power our future filled with 4G phones and tablets. Spectrum sharing is a concept already embraced by TV white spaces technology, which is sometimes called "Super WiFi" and uses empty TV channels instead of traditional WiFi frequencies. The PCAST recommendation is that sharing shouldn’t be the exception—it should be the norm.

"Technology innovations of recent years make this transforma­tion eminently achievable," the council explained. "Two trends are especially important. First, instead of just the tall cell towers that provide coverage for very large geographic areas, many wireless services are already moving to ‘small cell’ operations that provide services for very small geographic areas, reducing the potential for interference so that other services may operate much closer to them. The huge explosion of Wi­Fi services is one example of this evolution. Second, improvements in performance make it possible for devices to deliver services seamlessly even in the presence of signals from other systems, so that they do not need exclusive frequency assignments, only an assurance that potentially interfering signals will not rise above a certain level."

Given these capabilities, it’s time to stop fragmenting spectrum "into ever more finely divided exclusivity frequency assignments," and start specifying large frequency bands that can accommodate a wide variety of uses and technologies in a much more efficient manner.

PCAST said it has already identified more than 200 MHz of federal spectrum that can be freed for sharing. Another 195 MHz will be identified in a report coming later this year, and the Federal Communications Commission will use incentive auctions "to free up substantially more prime spectrum," the council noted.

Some public interest groups are already applauding the PCAST report.

"The path to sustainable spectrum growth must take advantage of our power to innovate and our leadership in open spectrum technologies such as WiFi and Super WiFi," Public Knowledge Senior VP Harold Feld said in a statement. "For too long, policymakers and industry lobbyists have quarrelled over whether to embrace more exclusive licensing or spectrum sharing as if a gain for one means a loss for the other. We are happy the PCAST report rejects this false choice that has deadlocked our spectrum policy for too long. By embracing sharing while continuing to find clearable spectrum for auction, we can not only ensure an endless supply of cat videos for our smart phones, but also provide enough open spectrum for technological innovation, job creation, and lower connection prices for consumers."

PCAST recommended allowing "general authorized access" devices to operate in the 3550-3650 MHz band (used for radar). It also identified the following list of bands as being potentially suitable for shared use:

The Wireless Innovation Alliance weighed in on the plan, saying, "We agree with PCAST that expanding on the TV White Space database approach holds immediate promise for opening the underutilized 3550-3650 MHz band for unlicensed devices and encourage the FCC and NTIA to make implementation a priority."

Today’s report was issued in response to a 2010 memorandum from Obama that required 500MHz of spectrum to be made available for commercial use over the next ten years. In recommending 1,000MHz of spectrum, PCAST noted that "in just two years, the astonishing growth of mobile information technology—exemplified by smartphones, tablets, and many other devices—has only made the demands on access to spectrum more urgent."