FCC Should Rethink The 6 GHz Proceeding Given The COVID-19 Crisis

The Federal Communications Commission’s unprecedented proposal to giveaway 1200 MHz of unlicensed spectrum for millions of disparate devices to be laid over critical uses in the 6 GHz band should be reconsidered. It could be disastrous to introduce millions of divergent devices and users on top of critical infrastructure networks with different traffic patterns next to these organized channels. Moreover, it creates a dangerous precedent against the proven market-based auction for licensed spectrum in favor of advocacy get spectrum for free. Moreover, if license providers find that their rights are diminished by overlays, they will either litigate against it or decline to invest in future.

A critique of the FCC of the past was how it handed out spectrum in “beauty contents”; this 6 GHz proceeding has those same elements. However, today’s FCC can improve the proceeding with pilots and testing as well as investigation to additional allocation models. The COVID-19 crisis has shown that licensed networks have incentivized spectrum investment and ensured that critical infrastructure continues to work. Those features serve America well in crisis as well as in calm.

[Roslyn Layton is a Visiting Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute]