Administration Making Steady Progress on Spectrum Strategy Reports: NTIA

The lower 37 GHz report is in the final stages and will provide “a path forward for both federal and commercial innovation,” Goel said. The lower 3 and 7/8 GHz are “the bands everyone wants to talk about,” he acknowledged. Accordingly, interagency groups “have rolled up their sleeves, and they’re hard at work already,” he said: “They’ve started to collect input from industry on use cases, and they’re busy, right now, blueprinting a path and a plan to go from ideas to analysis, and soon results.”

The lower 3 and 7/8 GHz, which wireless carriers have targeted for 5G, were bands “that nobody wanted to touch because of how complicated they are, and what’s in them today,” Goel said. “We’re going to follow the evidence where it goes.” NTIA’s Institute for Telecommunication Sciences is taking millions of measurements to better understand signal propagation in both bands, he said.

Spectrum is “officially on the map” at the highest levels of the U.S. government, Goel added. President Joe Biden has called spectrum “one of the nation’s most important national resources,” he said. “We’re talking about a resource for which demand … is surging by the day.” In 2023, Americans used more wireless data than they did from 2010 to 2018 combined.

The work of the federal government, “whether you’re talking about weather observation or defending the Pacific,” also is becoming more spectrum dependent, Goel said. “Many critical government systems already operate in or near frequencies eyed by the commercial sector,” he said. “Radar systems that protect our homeland and our allies still need to work.” The military requires reliable satellite communications. “We have to do it all in spectrum -- that’s just what we signed up for.”

NTIA recognizes the “common adage in spectrum that economic security is national security -- that they’re two sides of the same coin,” Goel said: “To advance those dual objectives we have to commit to exploring … the full art of the possible. That means embracing evidence, it means embracing data, to find a path forward, even when it’s hard.”

DOD also depends on commercial wireless, Goel noted. Wireless technologies “directly support national security missions.” The military “is working to harness 5G” at home and abroad. The same technology that lets consumers access Zoom using cellular connections can help the military “detect and respond to threats more effectively,” he said. “Everyone benefits from the innovation that spectrum enables."

“We need more licensed, full-power spectrum to keep leading the world,” said CTIA General Counsel Umair Javed. “We’re also a little out of balance,” with the federal government controlling about six times more mid-band spectrum than has been made available for licensed commercial.

“Step one is restoring FCC auction authority,” Javed said. With federal spectrum, there is still “very little transparency, no secondary markets and no built-in incentives” to use frequencies efficiently. U.S. auction policies, meanwhile, “have become a model for regulators worldwide.”

The U.S. wireless industry has recognized the security threat from China’s Huawei since 2012, Javed said. The nationwide carriers “led the country in making sure not to include Huawei equipment in their networks before there was any government mandate … or any government policy.”

The single largest user of spectrum in the world is the U.S. military, said Adam Candeub, law professor at Michigan State University and acting NTIA administrator during President-elect Donald Trump's first administration. “It’s a very difficult balancing game,” he said.

Comparing the U.S. to other nations is “very difficult given the unique role that America plays,” Candeub said. But national security “depends not just on the ability of the military to fulfill its mission at this moment, but also the continued vitality of the American economy.”

CSIS issued its first report on spectrum management in 2008 and many of the problems then remain, said James Lewis, CSIS senior vice president. One of the beliefs in 2008 was that “spectrum sharing would save us,” he said. “It turned out not to be true.” The lack of progress is “disturbing.”

Lewis said restoring the FCC's auction authority will be critical to the new Trump administration's spectrum policy. “A lot of this falls on Congress, but you need the administration to push it." The U.S. also must “align with the rest of the world on spectrum use, on licensing, on frequencies,” he said: “We’re kind of becoming a spectrum island.”

Strand Consult Executive Vice President Roslyn Layton noted the growing number of worldwide conflicts that could affect U.S. security. Given the state of the world, “one could conclude that we need to double down on defense and give the armed forces everything they need,” she said. But it’s not clear how much spectrum the military needs or whether it could do more with less, she added.