GLOBAL consultancy major Deliotte has shed new light on spectrum policy and auction, tax incentives, mobile broadband and economic growth in report on wireless broadband. It has also ranked 20 select countries including India in ushering in market and innovation-driven wireless broadband.

Its report captioned ‘Airwave overload? Addressing spectrum strategy issues that jeopardize U.S. mobile broadband leadership' is focused on the US spectrum reforms. It, however, also provides valuable insight to policy-makers and regulators in other countries especially the ones that remain entrapped in uncertainty over spectrum auctions.

The report notes: “Traditional auctions combined with viable secondary markets should continue to play central roles as effective mechanisms for distributing spectrum to users and uses with high-value potential. Allocating and assigning spectrum in large blocks based on technically driven criteria could alleviate constraints caused by the crowded, fragmented legacy spectrum zoning map. Principles-based license renewal reviews offer a means to ensure that license holdings and spectrum policies are aligned with changing technological and economic realities.”

Deliotte has noted that the governments across the world are grappling with the challenges of managing a major transition in spectrum policy.

As put by the report, “Existing approaches are being overwhelmed. Technology advances are boosting demand for bandwidth-intensive new offerings. Multiple interests need to be balanced.”

It suggest that the US must not only head off a spectrum shortage but show the way in adopting a policy framework that can better meet the requirements of the 21st century marketplace and thus retain its global mobile broadband leadership.

Deliotte has developed a “Mobile Communications National Achievement Index” as a preliminary model for a tracking a country annual performance on 15 global competitiveness indicators.

The report says: “By monitoring a set of indicators of the type we have assembled, and understanding movements in country indices, industry leaders and policymakers can gain a clear, objective view of how the U.S. stacks up in the global mobile broadband marketplace, and can design plans and policies to leverage and protect areas of strength while developing strategies to address areas of relative competitive weakness.”

The 20 countries that figure in the index are: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, United Kingdom and United States.

The report points out that the index provides evidence of U.S. leadership in mobile broadband, but also suggests that the gap is closing as other countries aggressively pursue developments in this space – continued U.S. leadership is not assured given current trends.

It has suggested that the US Government should treat the costs incurred in making sufficient spectrum available for commercial mobile broadband as investments with a return that is realized over time in the form of increased GDP, jobs, and tax revenue.

“ A successful TV broadcast spectrum auction should be a top priority as a highly visible step toward meeting the 2020 goal of freeing up 500 MHz of spectrum for mobile broadband,” the report says.