Other Carriers Oppose AT&T-Backed Plan for Public Safety Airwaves

WASHINGTON, May 2, 2025 – AT&T is supporting a plan to make airwaves it is poised to access better suited for 5G. A group representing the other two major carriers urged federal regulators against the move.

The Federal Communications Commission moved on a bipartisan basis last year to begin the process of allowing FirstNet, the nationwide first responder network run by AT&T, to access unassigned parts of the 4.9 GigaHertz band, currently set aside for local public safety users.

The band’s physical characteristics are useful for 5G, and the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials, led by a former FirstNet executive, asked the FCC earlier this year to increase allowed power levels in the band to make it even better suited for mobile broadband. The group asked the agency to move quickly and adopt final rules by June, arguing deployment could be sped up if the band were included in an upcoming release of standards from the 3rd Generation Partnership Project, the international body that sets mobile network standards.

“Failing to revise the technical rules by June 2025 is likely to result in at least a 12-to-18-month delay in mobile broadband network deployment efforts, meaning 5G deployments in the band would likely be pushed beyond 2028,” the group wrote.

The Coalition for Emergency Response and Critical Infrastructure, which represents Verizon, T-Mobile, and some other carriers and public safety groups, had strongly opposed letting FirstNet access the band, characterizing it as a multibillion-dollar giveaway to AT&T. The carrier can use dormant FirstNet spectrum for its commercial mobile network as part of its contract with the government.

CERCI opposed the APCO plan as well, telling the FCC that the higher power, which it said was “nearly 80 times higher” than incumbent operations, would increase interference and potentially disrupt critical systems. The group said the agency should at least analyze granular data submitted by incumbent users – due by June 9 – before making a decision. The agency is collecting the information to inform future coordination efforts between current users and FirstNet.

“There is nothing inherently unique about 3GPP release 19 with respect to usage of the 4.9 GHz band; additional 3GPP releases are already in progress,” the group wrote in an April 25 filing. “The potential significant risk of interference to existing public safety operations – and the effects on the actual safety of the public – clearly outweigh APCO’s desire to force the FCC to act against a false deadline.”

AT&T, which operates FirstNet, supported the APCO plan, as did the Public Safety Spectrum Alliance, which proposed allowing FirstNet to access the band initially.

“As AT&T has previously stated, 4.9 GHz spectrum provides a favorable mix of coverage and capacity that is ideally suited for the deployment of 5G,” the company wrote. “The existing technical rules governing the band are not consistent with unleashing 5G’s full public safety potential.”

There’s an existing court case challenging the order. CERCI is calling on the D.C. Circuit to scrap it entirely, arguing the FirstNet doesn’t have legal authority to operate in bands outside its initial charter, and PSSA wants FirstNet to get access to the airwaves even quicker. The cases have been consolidated, and all parties proposed a briefing schedule that would start in June.

The FCC also has to select a band manager, which would then be able enter into a sharing agreement with the Commerce Department agency that manages FirstNet.