AT&T CEO says spectrum issues are holding back ubiquitous broadband

AT&T CEO John Stankey spoke at a Semafor event on October 10 to discuss barriers to greater adoption of broadband in the US, and the conversation ended up focusing heavily on spectrum. “You want more competition and resiliency in broadband in the United States, you need deep spectrum,” he said. “The United States is not in an enviable position right now for the next 10 years relative to some other developed nations.” He then proceeded to touch on a lot of hot buttons in the wireless industry. He noted that the Federal Communications Commission doesn’t even have its authority to auction spectrum right now. “We have an FCC which actually can’t run an auction, which is kind of unfathomable,” he said. “We first have to get back to a point where we have an agency that can auction spectrum or license some spectrum to put it into use.” His reference to the FCC’s ability to “license some spectrum to put it into use” was probably referring to the fact that T-Mobile purchased $304 million worth of 2.5 GHz spectrum in Auction 108 last summer. But because of the FCC’s lapse in auction authority, the agency has not been able to process those licenses so that T-Mobile can deploy the spectrum in its network.