Unlocking spectrum from inefficient, inflexible uses assigned mostly prior to the 1990s to a more efficient, flexible-use model is a key challenge for the Federal Communications Commission. This paper focuses on transitions of spectrum use and looks at how the FCC attempted to minimize transaction and holdout costs while also facilitating competition among service providers. The FCC's recent Broadcast Incentive Auction provides a case study to examine tradeoffs between centralized mechanisms and “overlay” auctions.

The FCC experiences with overlays and more interventionist approaches leads to a set of five questions to help decide when to use simple overlays and when to add more rules to facilitate spectrum repurposing. When the FCC can facilitate repurposing through reducing hold up issues and providing alternatives for incumbents that decentralized private parties would find harder to effectuate, it may be appropriate for the FCC to step in. In other instances, overlays may be better.

将频谱从1990年代之前大多分配给低效，不灵活的使用中释放出来，成为更高效，灵活使用的模型，这是联邦通信委员会面临的主要挑战。本文着眼于频谱使用的过渡，并探讨了FCC如何尝试最小化交易和保留成本，同时也促进了服务提供商之间的竞争。FCC最近的广播激励拍卖提供了一个案例研究，以研究集中机制与“重叠”拍卖之间的权衡。

FCC在覆盖和更多干预方法方面的经验导致了五个问题，以帮助决定何时使用简单覆盖以及何时添加更多规则以促进频谱再利用。当FCC可以通过减少滞留问题并为分散的私人政党难以实现的老牌公司提供其他选择来促进重新调整目标时，FCC介入是合适的。在其他情况下，覆盖可能更好。