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April 2, 2012
The Honorable Julius Genachowski
Chairman
Federal Communications Commission
445 lih Street, SW
Washington, DC 20554
Dear Chairman Genachowski:
The expansion of broadband access is a key piece of promoting greater educational and business
opportunities for all Americans. As you have stated, our nation faces a "spectrum crunch" that threatens
to stifle broadband innovation, investment, and job creation in the wireless industry, and we agree with
you. Congressional passage of spectrum legislation earlier this year was a critical step toward expanded
broadband spectrum capacity. In the near term, however, the Commission should make every effort to
utilize unused, available spectrum for commercial mobile broadband services. We believe an ideal
opportunity exists in the S-Band of the 2 Gigahertz Mobile Satellite Service spectrum.
To that end, as the Commission moves forward with rulemaking, we support its efforts to enhance mobile
broadband services in the S-Band, and we believe that it would be in the public interest to act as swiftly as
practicable. We applaud the Commission for recently approving the transfer of the two S-Band licenses­
formerly held by DBSD and TerreStar - to DISH Network. That approval puts 40 Megahertz of
previously underutilized spectrum in the hands of an established Colorado company that intends to launch
a mobile broadband service and compete in the wireless market.
We are pleased that the Commission's recently announced rulemaking might let S-Band licensees provide
terrestrial-based mobile broadband service in a more efficient manner than current rules permit. We
encourage the Commission to complete the rulemaking as expeditiously as possible, which could go a
long a way toward alleviating the "spectrum crunch," while spurring innovation, creating thousands of
jobs, and offering a meaningful competitive choice to consumers.
Sincerely,
Mark Udall
United States Senator
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V Diana OeGette
United States Representative
Michael F. Bennet
United States Senator
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Scott Tipton
United States Representative
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Doug Lambom
United States Representative
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Mike Coffman
United States Representative