Spectrum "Highest and Best Use"

Highest and best use is a fundamental concept used by property tax assessors across the United States. A farm, located next to a suburban housing development, will have taxes assessed “as though” it were used to support similar uses.

The meaning is different in spectrum policy, and especially where it comes to shared spectrum. In that context, the notion is that existing bandwidth is inefficiently used, in many cases, and would be better deployed if sharing mechanisms were in place.

As envisioned for the 3.5-GHz spectrum in the United States, government users would continue to have first claim on their licensed spectrum. However, where periodic or nearly-permanent surpluses exist, commercial users would be allowed to use spectrum on a secondary basis, perhaps even with some quality of service guarantees.

The concept therefore implies more efficient use of communications spectrum, as well as ability to support a changing mix of potential applications, at lower societal cost than would be possible if a traditional command and control method (spectrum is fixed, users are fixed, protocols and applications are fixed) were used.