ThE National Spectrum Strategy and Implementation Plan

The past few months have witnessed a number of specrum-related events and announcements that should be of interest to academic researchers working in the field of spectrum technology and policy and guide future research efforts in this field. The December 2023 column [1] went to press just as The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) in the U.S. released its National Spectrum Strategy (NSS) on November 13, 2023 [2], where the bands 3.1–3.45 GHz, 5.03–5.091 GHz, 7.125–8.4 GHz, 18.1–18.6 GHz and 37.0–37.6 GHz were identified for study over the next 2 years for possible allocations to commercial wireless services. Shortly following this release, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) held the World Radiocommunications Conference 2023, WRC-23, during November 20 - December 15, 2023 in Dubai [3]. The February 2024 column [4] reported on some of the outcomes of WRC-23, specifically a number of study items that will be pursued by the ITU-R, the Radiocommunication Sector of the ITU, to be completed in time for WRC-27, and encouraged researchers to contribute to this effort. Most recently, the NTIA released the NSS Implementation Plan (IP) on March 12, 2024 [5], detailing a process and timeline for executing the strategy laid out in the NSS. This column will describe the main aspects of the NSS and the IP that will be of interest to researchers in the field.