Henry Geller is a telecommunications attorney and law professor with a distinguished career in U.S. com­munications policymaking and regulation. He worked at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) at several intervals from 1949 until 1973, serving as general counsel for six years (1964-70) and then becoming assistant to FCC chair Dean Burch. He later served as administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) for three years (1978-81) during the Carter presidency. Geller's contributions to national telecommunications policy­-making led to the National Civil Service Award in 1970.

     Geller has since served as a telecommunications adviser for a number of nongovernmental organizations, including Duke University's Washington Center for Public Policy Research, the Rand Corporation, and the Markle Foundation. His advice on policy matters was solicited because of his experience as a Washington telecommunications insider, and because of his iconoclastic views on communications spectrum issues.

     Geller has long espoused that the electromagnetic spectrum allocated for telecommunications purposes is a finite national resource, and that fees should be collected from all users of that spectrum. In 1979, while at the NTIA, Geller first broached the idea of auctioning spectrum for then-new technologies such as cellular telephony and wireless cable (MMDS). Free users of this resource such as radio and television broadcasters were adamantly opposed to such proposals, claiming that they (the broadcasters) were serving the public interest by providing news and other informative programming.

     Geller felt that broadcasters, especially at the local level, had neglected their public-interest programming obligations, and that the FCC should eliminate all "public fiduciary" regulation in favor of a fee-for­ spectrum arrangement. The benefits of such a system, as Geller described it, would involve an end to the lackluster provision of public-affairs and children's programming, and would allow the public, rather than the buyers and sellers of existing broadcast licenses, to benefit from spectrum auctions. He proposed that funds raised from spectrum auctions be dedicated to the development of public broadcasting services­ much like the traditional British model of public support for national programming.

     The irony of Geller's position on spectrum auctions is that the FCC now conducts such auctions for emerging communications technologies such as Personal Communications Services (PCS). However, the revenues collected are allocated for federal deficit reduction instead of supporting public broadcasting. Henry Geller is a well-informed critic of the status quo in telecommunications policy making, and the recent adoption of the spectrum auctions in the United States reaffirms a position that he has long advocated for the benefit of the public, rather than private, interest.