Sharing

Gigabit broadband service is coming to communities and rural areas in 11 states: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Wisconsin through a partnership by Nextlink and Tarana. They expect to expand service to hundreds of rural counties over the next several years, covering over a quarter million households. Part of this ties back to the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) licenses Nextlink picked up at auction in 2020.

While policymakers continue to make substantial investments toward universal broadband, these investments still leave gaps in Tribal connectivity. The three primary general-purpose broadband deployment grants accessible to Tribes include the Federal Communication Commission's High-Cost program, the Department of Agriculture’s (USDA's) Reconnect program, and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA's) Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program.

The “future of spectrum is sharing.” Basically, the airwaves are now so crowded that the old model of “clear and auction” federal spectrum is unsustainable for a society as connected as ours. With Wi-Fi 7 coming up, we will need channel sizes of 320 MHz of contiguous spectrum to get the benefits. Despite doomsday predictions from incumbents that any change in existing spectrum rules would cause massive destructive interference with valuable existing services, the Federal Communication Commission's engineers successfully evaluated the evidence and created rules that brought us new wireless s

The Senate Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Communications, Media, and Broadband held a hearing entitled Future of Spectrum to examine the management of spectrum. The Federal Communications Commission's spectrum auction authority is set to expire at the end of September. Congress has a unique opportunity to set future spectrum priorities and coordination goals to encourage efficient spectrum use. The hearing aimed to examine important policy considerations to ensure spectrum is utilized for the greatest benefit to the public.

This report assesses spectrum sharing to help observers look realistically at the prospects for sharing and barriers to realizing its more aspirational promises. Key findings include:

Reps Mike Doyle (D-PA) and Bob Latta (R-OH), along with Sens Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) and John Thune (R-SD) the Spectrum Innovation Act of 2022 (H.R.7624), legislation that would free up new airwaves for wireless broadband use by the public. The Spectrum Innovation Act would free-up new airwaves in the 3.1-3.45 GHz band for wireless broadband use for the public, which means faster speeds and more responsive networks for consumers.

Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel responded to letters by members of Congress inquiring about the FCC's spectrum auction program. In separate letters to House Representatives and Senators, Rosenworcel responded to questions about related topics including upcoming spectrum auctions, specific frequencies that may be good candidates for auction, and policy changes the agency can make to improve the program.

T-Mobile leases much of its 2.5 GHz spectrum from educational institutions around the country. And the carrier has made great efforts to keep the terms of these Educational Broadband Service (EBS) leases private. For instance, it is engaged in a dispute with Christian College of Georgia and demands that the college not reveal the terms of its lease.

The 5G for 12 GHz Coalition announced the addition of the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society—one of the most respected voices in shaping communications policy.

Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said that the company’s mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) service runs on “the best network.” Roberts was referring to the fact that Xfinity Wireless rides on Verizon’s network due to a wholesale agreement between the two companies. Roberts bragged that Comcast and Verizon recently updated their agreement to make improvements. The wholesale agreement specifies that Comcast can use its Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) spectrum to offload mobile traffic from Verizon’s network.