WASHINGTON, December 5, 2023 – The House Energy and Commerce Committee on Tuesday cleared a bill that would allow the Federal Communications Commission to issue already auctioned spectrum licenses. An identical bill passed the Senate in September.

The FCC’s authority to auction off spectrum and issue licenses expired for the first time in March. At that time the commission had auctioned 8,000 licenses in the 2.5 GigaHertz band for 5G networks, but had yet to issue them.

The 5G SALE Act, introduced in September by Rep. John Joyce, R-Pennsylvania, would give the FCC authority to release those licenses, allowing winners to expand their service areas.

The bill will now go to the full House for a vote.

FCC commissioners have been pushing for a full reinstatement of their auction authority, but supported the stopgap bill at an oversight hearing held by the committee on November 30. 

“The licensees deserve to get access to that spectrum,” FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said at the hearing. “You’re going to hopefully expedite the day when they do.”

T-mobile would see the biggest expansion if the bill becomes law. It spent over $300 million on 7,156 licenses in the band.

WASHINGTON, December 5, 2023 – A Department of Defense study on the lower 3 gigahertz band has found the agency cannot currently share the spectrum with commercial users, National Telecommunications and Information Administration Administrator Alan Davidson told lawmakers on Tuesday.

The spectrum has been eyed by industry for use in 5G networks. A trade group representing wireless carriers published a report in August arguing that 150 MHz of the 350 MHz band could be shared with commercial users without jeopardizing national security.

Davidson said the DOD’s report leaves open the possibility of sharing in the future if certain conditions are met, but makes clear the spectrum can’t be opened up in the near future. 

“The answer is no right now. They’ve not seen a way forward on that. And we think their technical work in that area is strong,” he said.

The report was mandated by the 2021 Infrastructure, Investment and Jobs Act and has been on the NTIA’s desk since late September. The agency has been working to brief lawmakers on the findings, some of which are classified, but was not able to do so before Tuesday’s House oversight hearing, Davidson said.

As outlined by the Biden administration’s spectrum plan, the NTIA will continue to study opening the band in the future. The two options for that, Davidson said, are changes that would make sharing possible or moving a government system to another band. That and other studies are set to be completed within two years.

“There are no easy answers here,” he said. “But we felt the band was too important to give up.”

The NTIA has been looking into the band for years, since a report on its potential for commercial use was mandated by a 2015 law. Under that law, the Federal Communications Commission is supposed to use the agency’s findings to auction off licenses allowing use of the band’s spectrum by summer 2024. 

The FCC’s ability to carry out such an auction expired in March after Congress failed to extend it, in part because of concerns over auctioning sensitive bands like the lower 3 GHz.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee cleared in May a bill that would reinstate that authority. That bill would allow for, but not mandate, an auction of the lower 3 GHz band.

WASHINGTON, November 17, 2023 – The National Telecommunications and Information Administration has moved to confirm some wireless technology will be included in its $42.5 billion broadband grant program. 

The agency clarified it will define fixed wireless broadband provided through “licensed-by-rule” spectrum as reliable. That makes providers using that spectrum eligible for funding if fiber is too expensive, and protects them from overbuilding by other projects under the program.

The move is a win for wireless providers, who have been pushing the NTIA to move on the issue since it released the notice of funding opportunity for the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program in 2022.

When the BEAD guidelines were first published, they only marked broadband provided via licensed spectrum – frequency bands designated by the Federal Communications Commission for use by a single provider – as reliable broadband. 

That meant areas receiving broadband through only unlicensed spectrum – bands set aside for shared use – would be open for BEAD-funded projects from other providers. This is still the case under the clarified rules.

The original guidelines would also put systems like the Citizens Broadband Radio Service in a gray zone. The CBRS uses a tiered license system, with government users, priority license holders, and general users sharing 150 megahertz of spectrum. Each tier gets preference over the one below it, meaning a general access user cannot, for example, interfere with a government system.

Some broadband providers use that spectrum on a general access basis to provide internet service. They were initially marked in the FCC’s broadband data with the same code as fully licensed spectrum, 71. But when the FCC added in January a new technology code specific to licensed-by-rule spectrum, 72, it became unclear how the technology would be treated by the BEAD program.

The NTIA cleared up any confusion on November 9, issuing an updated version of its FAQs specifying the new technology code would be treated as reliable broadband, and thus both eligible for BEAD dollars and protected from overbuilding. 

The agencies did not go so far as to comment on the merits of the technology, though, saying in its new FAQ section that it would treat licensed-by-rule as reliable because it was originally classified under 71, with fully licensed spectrum.