NCTA Seeks Action by President Obama on 5.9 GHz Spectrum

The National Cable & Telecommunications Association is pushing President Barack Obama to make opening up the 5.9 GHz band for more Wi-Fi a priority in his remaining days in office, saying the need is urgent and the spectrum deficit dangerous. It signed on to a joint letter to the White House from a group of tech and Internet companies, schools and libraries.

While NCTA is sparring with Google in the set-top sphere, and has butted heads with Free Press over consolidation, they are all together in their support of opening up the band. Cable operators have been pushing for more 5 GHz spectrum to fuel their Wi-Fi hotspots, the industry's primary mobile broadband play. "While Americans’ dependence on unlicensed technologies for Internet access continues to skyrocket," they told the President, "the spectrum resources that power our devices are perilously insufficient. As a result, our Wi-Fi bands are becoming dangerously congested. The problem has become so severe that Cisco and Apple have recently warned customers that the core 2.4 GHz unlicensed band has become so overtaxed that it 'is not considered suitable for use for any business and/or mission critical enterprise applications.' We must act now to find more unlicensed spectrum." The President has not been shy about wanting to free up more spectrum for broadband—it has been a tech centerpiece of his Administration—and the Federal Communications Commission has been looking to do so in the 5.9 GHz band, but there remain issues of possible interference with connected car technology that it is still working through.