Tag Archives: spectrum auction

The Spectrum Policy Mess

There was a recent article in LightReading that asked a great question – BEAD bet big on CBRS and 6 GHz bands, so why is Congress gutting them? Answering that question needs some context.

NTIA leaned into supporting fixed wireless throughout the BEAD process. During the original BEAD map challenge process, NTIA made it clear that locations covered by WISPs using licensed spectrum (CBRS) were to be considered as served as long as the WISP claimed the ability to deliver 100/20 Mbps broadband. There were vigorous challenges by governments and ISPs during that map challenge, so some areas served by licensed spectrum were kept as BEAD-eligible if speeds were below that threshold.

More recently, NTIA came out with a surprise decision that State Broadband Offices (SBOs) had to remove BEAD locations served by WISPs using only unlicensed spectrum. We’ll have to wait for the final count, but folks are speculating that this removed about 15% of the remaining BEAD-eligible locations nationwide.

It’s likely that the majority of rural WISPs will be incorporating 6 GHz spectrum into rural fixed wireless networks. If they haven’t done so yet, it will be a big component of future electronics upgrades. 6 GHz spectrum has wide channels that allow WISPs to deliver much faster speeds to customers within a reasonable distance from a tower.

When NTIA made the announcement that locations served by unlicensed WISPs are considered to be served, NTIA also changed the BEAD grant rules drastically and is allowing fixed wireless, cellular FWA, and satellite on the same playing field as fiber when choosing grant winners. NTIA is allowing SBOs to give some priority to fiber, but since NTIA also reserves the right to review every grant award, I think the priority for fiber is somewhat of a smokescreen. It seems clear that wireless carriers and satellite carriers are going to win a lot more BEAD locations than anybody ever anticipated. WISPs that win BEAD are going to be heavily reliant on CBRS and 6 GHz spectrum.

At the same time that BEAD was changing, Congress took a different path that poses a big threat to the availability of CBRS and 6 GHz spectrum. Congress has accepted the hype from cellular carriers that they will be running out of spectrum in a few years. The carriers even rolled out the old saw that the U.S. is losing the 5G race to China. My cynical take is that the carriers want more spectrum to expand FWA home wireless.

In the One Big Beautiful Bill, Congress renewed the FCC’s ability to hold spectrum auctions and instructed the FCC and NTIA to identify at least 800 megahertz of spectrum between 1.3 GHz and 10.5 GHz to be auctioned. The FCC must auction at least 300 megahertz of spectrum within two years, which must include at least 100 megahertz of the C-Band spectrum between 3.98-4.2 GHz. The bill carves out two bands of spectrum that cannot be considered for auction or relocation. The 3.1-3.25 GHz spectrum has been used by the military for many years. Also excluded is spectrum between 7.4-8.4 GHz, which is part of the X-Band spectrum that is used for military satellites.

The FCC and NTIA must identify 500 megahertz of other spectrum that will support full-power commercial licensed use cases. The new law does not protect CBRS spectrum, which sits at 3-55 – 3.7 GHz. This spectrum is used today by over 1,000 entities today such as WISPs, private networks, ports, schools, sports venues, hospitals, airports, and the DOD. The OBBB also doesn’t protect 6 GHz spectrum that is fully used today for WiFi. The FCC approved 6 GHz spectrum for WiFi in April 2020, and the spectrum is key to the ongoing deployment of WiFi 6 and WiFi 7, along with rural broadband.

There is no guarantee that the FCC will touch these two blocks of spectrum, but it’s going to be exceedingly hard to find 800 MHz of spectrum to auction without grabbing some or all of these two spectrum bands. There will obviously be a big battle from WISPs and the WiFi industry to protect CBRS and 6 GHz, but the FCC has the cover from Congress to allow them to raid the two spectrum bands.

As the LightReading article points out, NTIA and Congress are working at odds with each other. It’s not hard to envision BEAD grants going to WISPs and then watching WISPs lose the spectrum they need.

This whole mess comes from Congress meddling in spectrum policy – something they haven’t done before. The historical process was for the FCC to weigh the pros and cons of available spectrum and to pick the most beneficial use for each spectrum band. But Congress wanted to claim $85 billion in potential revenue from spectrum auctions to offset tax cuts.

I’ve talked to WISPs who say that losing CBRS and 6 GHz spectrum puts them out of business. That would leave them with the historic WiFi spectrum that has too few and overused channels.

The economy will suffer greatly in the long run if the cellular carriers are able to pull off this unprecedented raid on spectrum. Rural broadband will suffer a big hit. But the biggest hit to the economy would come from loss of WiFi spectrum, which fuels trillions of dollars of value across the economy.

OBBB and Spectrum

The cellular industry is taking a victory lap after passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB). The law reinstates the FCC’s authority to hold spectrum auctions and sets goals for the FCC to raise as much as $85 billion from selling spectrum. The following are the key provisions of the new law.

The bill instructs the FCC and the Assistant Secretary of Commerce (NTIA) to identify at least 800 megahertz of spectrum to be auctioned – between 1.3 GHz and 10.5 GHz. The law largely leaves it up to the two parties to determine the spectrum that will be up for sale. It will be interesting to how the FCC and NTIA coordinate on this.

The FCC is ordered to auction at least 300 megahertz of spectrum within two years, which must include at least 100 megahertz of the C-Band spectrum between 3.98-4.2 GHz. The FCC and NTIA must then identify 500 megahertz of spectrum that will support full-power commercial licensed use cases. That’s been a major goal for years for CTIA, the lobbyist for the cellular industry.

The bill carves out two bands of spectrum that cannot be considered for auction or relocation. The 3.1-3.25 GHz spectrum has been used by the military for many years. Also excluded is spectrum between 7.4-8.4 GHz, which is part of the X-Band spectrum that is used for military satellites.

The new law does not protect CBRS spectrum, which sits at 3-55 – 3.7 GHz. This spectrum is being used by today by over 1,000 entities today such as WISPs, private networks, ports, schools, sports venues, hospitals, airports, and the DOD. Part of this spectrum band is available for use by anybody, but subject to a system that shares bandwidth among users. AT&T had proposed late in 2024 that the FCC auction CBRS, which led to a letter signed by 23 ISPs from Texas and WISPA and sent a letter to Senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn of Texas.

The bigger controversy comes from considering auctioning all or part of the 6 GHz spectrum that is used today for WiFi. The FCC approved this as public spectrum in April 2020, and the bandwidth available in this spectrum band has enabled the development of WiFi 6 and WiFi 7. Critics of the legislation point out that WiFi is by far the most valuable spectrum in the country. A study published by NCTA said the value of WiFi to the U.S. economy is $1.6 trillion in 2025, and the value is growing rapidly and will be 33% more by 2027.

The potential raid on the 6 GHz spectrum has raised alarm bells worldwide. This spectrum has been earmarked around the world for WiFi and unlicensed and shared spectrum use. The fear is that carving out some of U.S. 6 GHz spectrum will threaten WiFi innovation, and would make it harder to develop interoperable hardware and chip sets.

Trade groups such as the Wi-Fi Alliance and NCTA have filed objections with the FCC that suggested that any value generated by cellular use would pale against the huge benefits of expanded WiFi.

The FCC is going to have a major battle to auction 6 GHz spectrum that will pit the biggest cellular carriers against ISPs and the many other industries that benefit from WiFi. I remember a quote in an article a few years ago that resonated with me, which said that most people use WiFi from waking until bedtime, making it the most valuable spectrum.

Regulatory Shorts March 2025

The industry is awash with regulatory changes, and I’ll likely be writing more blogs like this listing some of the changes that impact small ISPs.

Supreme Court Refuses Second Review of NY Low Rates. ISPs were irate when the Supreme Court refused to hear their appeal case against the State of New York that requires ISPs with more than 20,000 customers to provide broadband for as little as $15 per month for qualifying low-income households. The ISPs scrambled and asked the Court a second time to take the case, and the Court declined for a second time. The law is already in effect in the state. Several other states, like California, Massachusetts, and Vermont, are now considering similar legislation.

Feds Talk About Fixing Permits on Public Lands – Again. There was a lot of talk in DC recently about finally fixing issues that make it slow and painful to get a permit to build fiber or other telecom infrastructure on federal land. My recollection is that the last three administrations took a swing at the issue, and yet there has been little meaningful improvement. We’ll have to see if the fourth time is the charm.

One-to-One Consent Law Vacated. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a ruling from the FCC that could have resulted in far fewer robocalls. In December 2023, the FCC passed a rule that required anybody who wants to call a consumer to have a one-on-one relationship with the called party, meaning the consumer had to either be an existing customer or give explicit permission to be called.

The law was passed because of a practice where marketing companies asks consumers for permission to be called by it or its ‘partners’. Companies that get callers to agree to this expanded permission then sell the lists to the other calling companies for a fee. The buyers of the list then act as if they have permission to call.

FCC Authority to Auction Spectrum? The Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing under Chairman Senator Ted Cruz on February 19 to discuss the topic. There seemed to be bipartisan support for the idea of renewing the FCC’s auction authority. The FCC says that releasing new spectrum for cellular is one of its top priorities.

Tax Free BEAD Funding. Currently, any grant funding given to an ISP creates a taxable event, which means a huge tax penalty for any taxable entity that accepts a BEAD or other grant. I know ISPs who stayed out of BEAD because of this issue. A bipartisan group of Senators reintroduced the Broadband Grant Tax Treatment Act on February 24, which would make the proceeds from infrastructure grants non-taxable. The IRS used to be able to make the taxable/non-taxable decision, but that ability lapsed due to provisions in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

A New Twist on BEAD. Louisiana got approval from NTIA on January 13 for the broadband grants the state wants to make from the BEAD grant program. It turns out that there is an additional step before Louisiana can tell ISPs to move forward, and the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) also has to give a go-ahead for the funds to be released. That’s a delay that nobody built into their BEAD timelines – and Louisiana and other states are still waiting for NIST approval.

The Millimeter Wave Auctions

The FCC will soon hold the auction for two bands of millimeter wave spectrum. The auction for the 28 GHz spectrum, referred to as Auction 101, will begin on November 14 and will offer 3,072 licenses in the 27.5 to 28.35 GHz band. The auction for 24 GHz, referred to as Auction 102, will follow at the end of Auction 101 and will offer 2,909 licenses in the 24.25 to 24.45 GHz and the 24.75 to 25.25 GHz bands.

This is the spectrum that will support 5G high-bandwidth products. The most unusual aspect of this auction is that the FCC is offering much wider channels than ever before, making the spectrum particularly useful for broadband deployment and also for the frequency slicing needed to serve multiple customers. The Auction 101 includes two blocks of 425 MHz and is being auctioned by County. Auction 102 will include seven blocks of 100 MHz and will be auctioned by Partial Economic Areas (PEA). PEAs divide the country into 416 zones, grouped by economic interest. They vary from the gigantic PEA that encompasses all of the New York City and the surrounding areas in Connecticut and New Jersey to PEAs that are almost entirely rural.

That means that every part of the country could see as many as seven different license holders, assuming that somebody pursues all of the spectrum. It’s likely, though, that there will be rural areas where nobody buys the spectrum. It will be interesting to look at the maps when the auctions are done.

This is the spectrum that can be used to support the fixed wireless broadband like Verizon is now deploying from poles. The spectrum has the capability of delivering big bandwidth, but for relatively short distances of 1,000 feet or more. The spectrum can also be used as a focused beam to deliver several gigabits of bandwidth for a mile to a single point, such as what Webpass is currently doing to serve downtown high-rise apartment buildings.

The industry consensus is that this spectrum will find limited use in rural areas for now since it’s hard, with existing technology, to deploy a 5G transmitter site that might only reach a few potential customers.

The FCC has released the names of the companies that will be bidding in the auction. As expected the big cellular companies are there and AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile are bidding. Absent is Sprint, but the speculation is that they are relying on the merger with T-Mobile and have elected to sit out the auction.

The big telcos are also in the auctions with AT&T, Verizon, Frontier and Windstream all participating. Absent is CenturyLink, which further strengthens the belief that they are no longer pursuing residential broadband.

The only cable company of any size in the auction is Cox Communications. The other big companies like Comcast, Charter, Altice and many others are sitting out the auction. It doesn’t make sense for a cable company to deploy the spectrum where they are already the incumbent broadband provider. Wireless technology for end users would complete directly with their own networks. Since Cox is privately held it’s hard to know their plans, but one use of the spectrum would be to expand in the areas surrounding their current footprint or to move into new markets. It’s costly to expand their hybrid-fiber networks and 5G wireless might be a cheaper way to move into new markets.

There are some rural companies that are bidding for spectrum. It’s hard to know if the rural telcos and cooperatives on the list want to use the spectrum to enhance broadband in their own footprint or if they want to use the spectrum to expand into larger nearby markets. One of the most interesting companies taking part in both auctions is US Cellular. They are the fifth largest cellular company after the big four and serve mostly rural markets. They’ve already made public announcements about upgrading to the most current version of 4G LTE and it will be interesting to see how they use this spectrum.