Currently, the largest holder of spectrum in the US is not industry, but the Federal, State, and Local governments. Terrestrial use of this spectrum varies from walkie talkie applications over VHF to animal tracking. All of these applications use disparate, proprietary, and low spectral efficiency access technologies.

Use of IP based broadband networks, such as LTE or WiMAX, where IP is the unifying protocol, will allow for IP based applications to be used/built for the Government. The applications become a function of software, rather than hardware, and can use COTS devices more readily and in less expensive manners than special purpose built devices that are difficult to integrate without many gateway devices.

The goal of this program would be to accelerate the migration of Government wireless systems to "4G" technologies to bring down costs of the existing disparate and ineffective systems. Using an Enterprise Architecture approach can allow the flexibility to implement almost any application over this infrastructure with COTS devices.

IP enabled, 4G devices and applications will grow over time as consumers and business adopt them. The government needs to evaluate how to use this technology to cut costs and energy utilization (bits/hertz/joule).