Pending: A Modern U.S. Spectrum Strategy
As everything from economic strength to national security increasingly relies on connected devices, a nation’s technological leadership is largely defined by its spectrum policy. The United States has long been at the forefront of such policy, but it seems more willing to abdicate that post than to build a coherent spectrum strategy that prepares modern-day spectrum policy for the next decade.
A Trump-era presidential memo promised the development of a national spectrum strategy in 2018. Crickets followed, and the five years since then have revealed a U.S. spectrum situation characterized by misaligned incentives and contradictory approaches. The rollout of the C-Band made national news when two major industries collided, revealing gaps in the allocation process and a failure to harmonize federal incentives. And to top it off, Congress allowed the FCC’s auction authority to expire, a casualty of an ongoing dispute with the Department of Defense over potential commercialization of the 3.1-3.45 band.
This is because when it comes to U.S. spectrum, incentives are not aligned. Federal agencies, which control large swaths of the most desirable frequencies, have enough political clout to hamstring spectrum allocation by simply refusing to budge. Agencies’ patrons in Congress would rather continue the stalemate than figure out how to bridge the gap. There’s a serious misalignment of priorities among various groups—groups that, when it comes down to it, are all fundamentally tasked with advancing and maintaining U.S. leadership. U.S. national security is partially premised on economic strength and technological resilience by the military. The dysfunctional status quo compromises both of these.
And with all this, in 2023, we are yet to see a coherent spectrum strategy. NTIA is set to publish one soon, but whether it’ll tackle the hard questions is unclear. After such a protracted wait, if the strategy shies away from making decisions—like identifying particular bands for reallocation to commercial use—it will only cement the impression that the United States is no longer serious about wireless advancement and everything that relies on it.
The United States needs guardrails that maximize spectrum productivity, build flexibility to accommodate improvements in sharing, and mandate that every federal spectrum user make long-term spectrum plans and advance as technology does—in short, that they take spectrum seriously. Moreover, NTIA needs to offer short-term specificity about which bands will be studied for which reallocations and exactly how and when it plans to study them. It could also tweak existing policy frameworks to align federal and commercial incentives—such as by modernizing the Spectrum Reallocation Fund to replace the comparable capability requirement with one that permits the use of newer, better technologies. For it to really make a difference, the spectrum strategy needs to promise and deliver concrete action on a timeline.
The jury’s still out on the lower 3 GHz band—and whether the FCC will ever auction spectrum again—but rumor has it the DoD is holding firm against sharing the band. Meanwhile, countries around the world have largely completed their 3.3-3.45 GHz allocations: Around 50 already operate full-power 5G networks in the lower 3 GHz range. Technological competitors like China, South Korea, and Japan have moved ahead on lower 3 GHz, and the United States can’t get its house in order.
With the World Radio Conference (WRC) just weeks away, the rest of the world is readying itself to talk about standards for the next generations of mobile technology and to harmonize allocations worldwide. The Conference’s agenda identifies five bands for potential 5G use. Despite the FCC’s bipartisan agreement on the importance of getting behind upcoming bands and trailing countries like China that already support every 5G mid-band allocation, the United States is pushing only two bands into the WRC. Some of the bands up for mobile use have long been subject to fruitless proposals for commercial use in the U.S. market. Meanwhile, mobile use is ramping up—in the words of Commissioner Starks at the MWC Las Vegas 2023 show, it’s “exactly the wrong time for us to take our foot off the gas.”
The United States cannot afford to voluntarily silence itself in discussions that determine the future of mobile broadband. By doing nothing, or too little, it’s actually doing a lot: Shrugging off the need to modernize spectrum use, hamstringing itself in the upcoming WRC, and steadily abdicating responsibility for a leading U.S. wireless future.
The United States needs a real national spectrum strategy that aligns incentives for productive use, highlights specific bands for action, and points every spectrum user toward a vibrant mobile future. The future of wireless connectivity relies on nothing less.
