Auctions

Here's the agenda for the Federal Communications Commission's February open meeting:

Even before Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai formally unveiled his plan for a C-band spectrum auction to reassign bandwidth for 5G wireless services, legislative and public interest forces began voicing their opposition to or endorsements for the proposal. 

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai shared with his fellow Commissioners draft rules that would reform the use of the C-band and make a large amount of spectrum available for 5G, the next generation of wireless technology. The full Commission will vote on this Report and Order on Feb 28, 2020 at the FCC’s Open Meeting.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai shared draft rules that would reform the use of the C-band and make a large amount of spectrum available for 5G, the next generation of wireless technology. The C-band is a 500-megahertz segment of spectrum from 3.7 to 4.2 GHz, which is now mostly used by fixed satellite companies to beam content to video and audio broadcasters, cable systems, and other content distributors. However, satellite companies don’t need the entire C-band to provide the services they are providing today.

The Federal Communications Commission announced that the Tribal priority window has officially opened for federally recognized Tribes and Alaska Native Villages to apply for spectrum in the 2.5 GHz band. This band—the single largest band of contiguous spectrum below 3 GHz—offers favorable coverage and capacity characteristics for next-generation mobile services, such as 5G. In 2019, the FCC modernized the regulatory framework for this swath of vital mid-band spectrum to make it available for advanced wireless services.

CTIA President Meredith Attwell Baker, representing wireless giants like AT&T and Verizon, paid a visit to Federal Communications Commission Ajit Pai Pai and FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly to lobby them to auction off licenses in the upper portion of the 6 GHz airwaves.

On Nov 19, 2019, Senate Committee on Indian Affairs Ranking Member Tom Udall (D-NM) and Sens Brian Schatz (D-HI) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) wrote to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai to give voice to the concerns raised by Tribal communities surrounding the implementation of the Tribal priority window to open up access to Educational Broadband Service (EBS) spectrum on Tribal lands. 

The Senate Commerce Committee's first hearing of 2020, "Industries of the Future" dealt with the federal government's role in advancing new technologies. Federal Communications Commissioners Jessica Rosenwrocel and Michael O'Rielly testified and spoke about 5G. On the issue of speeding the 5G rollout, Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-MS) pointed out that there is "a company on TV" already advertising that they are already leading the industry in 5G. Commissioner Rosenworcel said there have been some deployments, which was exciting, but that they were chiefly in urban areas.

A bipartisan group of leading national security senators introduced legislation to encourage and support US innovation in the race for 5G, providing over $1 billion to invest in Western-based alternatives to Chinese equipment providers Huawei and ZTE.