The 12 GHz Band Is the Easy Case for Spectrum Sharing. Let the FCC Do Its Job.

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 services without causing harmful (let alone destructive) interference to existing services. The spectrum fight du jour is the 12 GHz band (technically the 12.2-12.7 GHz band). Public Knowledge and other public interest groups support the change to promote competition in the band, which could positively benefit millions of rural Americans. But we also want the FCC to authorize unlicensed access in the band to provide needed spectrum for Wi-Fi 7. If the FCC engineers conclude that neither unlicensed sharing nor new mobile service in the band can coexist with Starlink, then so be it.  But if the engineers find rules that allow coexistence, then we need to trust their analysis.