Spectrum Strategy Director: Stick to the Plan

WASHINGTON, Dec. 13, 2024 – An architect of the White House’s plan to study federal spectrum bands for potential repurposing has a message for the incoming Trump administration: Stay the course.

“The most direct path to getting significant spectrum to auction and to get it into phones is to carry out the national spectrum strategy,” said Scott Blake Harris, a former National Telecommunications and Information Administration official who directed the plan’s development. He spoke Thursday at a Broadband Breakfast event on telecom policy in Washington.

The document, released in March, calls for studying nearly 2,800 megahertz of government spectrum to see if more airwaves can be opened up for the private sector. The NTIA, Federal Communications Commission, and Defense Department recently completed the first of those studies, which they said found the lower 37 GigaHertz band, millimeter wave spectrum ideal for sending lots of data over short distances, could be shared on a mostly co-equal basis.

“Through the whole national spectrum strategy, we assign roles, responsibilities, and dates – the date on which something would kick off, and the date on which it would be completed,” he said, calling the detailed implementation plan “pretty unusual for the federal government.”

Studies of the 7/8 GigaHertz and lower 3 GHz bands, much more highly sought after by the 5G industry, are set to be completed in October 2026.

That may seem like a long time. Brendan Carr, the incoming FCC chairman, has criticized the plan for being too deliberative and not mandating any auctions. 

Shiva Goel, a senior spectrum policy advisor at NTIA, said that’s partly because the easy-to-clear spectrum has already been identified. That coupled with government systems also becoming more advanced makes opening up airwaves difficult, he said.

“The bands that remain available and under consideration for expanded commercial use, they have a greater and more complex federal incumbency than bands in the past,” he said. “The low-hanging fruit is gone, as many like to say.”

Of course, the FCC will eventually need its authority to auction airwaves restored by Congress. The agency’s ability to do so lapsed in March 2023.

Robert McDowell, a partner at Cooley LLP,  said there’s been “a lot of talk” about spectrum auction authority being part of a budget reconciliation bill next year. 

He noted there’s a lot of industry support for a spectrum bill from Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, incoming chair of the Commerce Committee. That bill would mandate NTIA find 2,500 megahertz to auction in the next five years.

The Commerce Department and Joint Chiefs of Staff, along with the Defense Department – not eager to give up airwaves – had signed on to a competing spectrum auction bill from current Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., that didn’t have a mandatory threshold and included other requested edits around interagency coordination. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said Thursday that Cantwell is still working to move that legislation forward.

Regardless, of when its full authority is restored, it's looking like the agency will be able to auction off the AWS-3 bands sooner. The must-pass Defense bill that cleared the House Wednesday includes language allowing the FCC to auction those bands, which were previously sold off but handed back by Dish.

Assuming the bill ultimately passes, the FCC "should immediately go forward on AWS-3," said David Redl, a former NTIA administrator. "There's no reason not to. Those licenses are inventoried, the rules are set."

Jeff Blum, executive vice president of government affairs at Dish-owner EchoStar, reiterated the company's position that the FCC should raise allowed power levels for CBRS as a means of making more airwaves useful for 5G.