Spectrum

The Federal Communications Commission adopted new rules to enable initial drone operations in the 5 GHz spectrum band for wireless communications necessary to safely control the flights of uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS). The use of UAS in the United States is growing quickly: during this decade, UAS operations are expected to triple in terms of the number of devices and see the market expand into in the tens of billions of dollars.

The Federal Communications Commission's Space and Wireless Telecommunications Bureaus, the Office of International Affairs, and the Office of Engineering and Technology seek to further develop the record for the 18.1–18.6 GHz band (18 GHz band) with the goal of informing the forthcoming report mandated by the National Spectrum Strategy (NSS) Implementation Plan. The NSS identified the 18 GHz band as a potential band for expanded Federal and non-Federal satellite operations, consistent with the U.S.

The Federal Communications Commission voted unanimously to begin a proceeding to update the Citizens Broadband Radio Service.

Rep August Pfluger (R-TX) introduced the Supporting National Security with Spectrum Act, which fully funds the “Rip and Replace” program to remove Chinese equipment from our telecommunications networks.

On August 5, 2024 the World Radiocommunication Conference Advisory Committee approved and provided for Federal Communications Commission (FCC) consideration of its draft recommendations on issues that will be considered by the 2027 World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-27).

Seven recommendations to allow the Department of Commerce to assist the next President in implementing a bold agenda to deliver economic prosperity and strong national security, including: 

Alan Davidson, Administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), said that the agency is going to put out a guidelines document in a couple of weeks that will outline the use of alternate technologies in Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) projects.  NTIA stated from the beginning that fiber is its preferred technology for BEAD projects. But in cases where that isn’t economical, other technologies such as licensed wireless or coaxial cable may be approved for BEAD funds.

To hear well-known Wall Street analyst Craig Moffett tell it, Verizon spent a mind-boggling $52 billion on C-band spectrum which “isn’t very good” and fixing its 5G coverage problem is going to require even more money—“lots of money.” That was one of the hottest and most publicized take-aways from Verizon’s Q2 earnings call. While Moffett described Verizon’s overall wireless Q2 results as “fair,” the gist of his report focused on “Verizon’s C-band problem,” one that he said will take a whole lot of densification to rectify.

US senators wrote to Jonathan Kanter, Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Jessica Rosenworcel, Chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), urging them to closely scrutinize T-Mobile’s proposed acquisition of UScellular. Since T-Mobile acquired Sprint in 2020, just three carriers have dominated the national mobile wireless service market.

This research analyzed how much bidders in the record-breaking C-Band spectrum (3.7–4.2 GHz) auction were willing to pay for earlier access to frequency rights and the policy implications of the incentive system employed by the Federal Communications Commission to clear the band on an accelerated timeline. The analysis found that bidders paid 20.7 percent more on average for licenses available two years earlier with no subsequent legal challenges.