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Wednesday's action continues the FCC's work to make more spectrum available for mobile broadband, an effort the agency has undertaken in response to the spike in consumption of wireless data that carriers have warned threatens to overwhelm their networks if they don't gain access to more capacity.

Last month, the FCC to develop guidelines for a series of auctions to reallocate spectrum from television broadcasters to wireless carriers. The agency has set the overarching goals of freeing up 300 MHz of spectrum for mobile broadband by 2015, and 500 MHz by 2020.

That agenda meshes with the argument Genachowski that broadband speeds and capacity are a pillar of U.S. competitiveness in the global economy. And the FCC under his watch has left no confusion that wireless will be a crucial driver of the broadband ecosystem.

"Over the past four years, the U.S. has regained global leadership in mobile, setting the pace in key areas like the apps economy, mobile operating systems and the rollout of 4G LTE networks at scale," Genachowski said. "The U.S. has become the world's testbed for 4G LTE services and applications, which is vital for U.S. innovation, leadership, and for sustainability -- job creation. And to maintain our leadership, and to spur future innovation, we need to ensure that the U.S. has a strategic bandwidth advantage -- advanced, high-capacity and ubiquitous broadband. That requires maximizing the value of the airwaves and ensuring that the spectrum crunch doesn't slow growth in the mobile economy."