STATEMENT OF
COMMISSIONER MICHAEL J. COPPS
Re: Federal Communications Commission Designates Spectrum and Provides Guidance for 
Participation in a Spectrum Sharing Innovation Test Bed; ET Docket No. 06-89
I am a big believer in government doing all it can to encourage innovation.  A critical part 
of this mission is making spectrum available for our nation’s engineers and inventors to develop 
the next generation of wireless devices.  That is why I wholeheartedly support the Department of 
Commerce’s 2004 recommendation that NTIA and the FCC jointly develop a spectrum test-bed.
Nevertheless, I must register my concern (as I did back in 2006) that at each step of the 
process, the U.S. Government is falling behind the timeframe originally envisioned in 2004. It is 
now abundantly clear that we will not achieve the June 2008 target for completing this project.  I 
hope that, despite the late start, we are able to accelerate the pace of this proceeding so that 
American citizens will be able to benefit from this basic research as quickly as possible.