Tag Archives: spectrum policy

What Happened to Spectrum Policy Debate?

There is something that has been nagging at the back of my mind for the last year. In the One Big Beautiful Bill, Congress ordered the FCC to auction 800 MHz of midrange spectrum. This is spectrum that is expected to mostly go to cellular carriers, although at least some will go to others. Since Congress’s stated goal is to raise $85 billion for the U.S Treasury with these auctions, it’s not likely that this spectrum will be priced low enough to be attractive to many users other than large cellular companies, and perhaps large cable companies and satellite companies.

The question that has been nagging me is whether the cellular industry really needs that much new spectrum. I acknowledge there is growth in cellphone data usage, but it is not growing at a rate that justifies the need for this much additional spectrum.

Instead, the new spectrum is needed to support FWA home broadband. At the end of 2025, OpenVault says the average home and small business broadband customer uses an average of 767 gigabytes of data per month. By contrast, the average cellular customer uses perhaps 25 gigabytes per month on the cellular network (most cellphone usage is on WiFi). This means that one FWA home broadband customer uses as much cellular network bandwidth resources as 31 cellphone customers. That may not sound significant, but consider that by the end of the first quarter of this year that AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon had collectively added 15.5 million customers to FWA, and have been steadily adding around 1 million more FWA customers every quarter.

All three carriers have plans to continue to add FWA customers. Verizon says its goal by 2030 is 8-9 million FWA customers, and T-Mobile’s goal is 15 million. AT&T hasn’t stated a goal, but it clearly is growing.

If we go back just ten years, there was absolutely zero conversation in the industry about using cellular spectrum to create a major broadband competitor. There was no discussion at any proceeding at the FCC of the need to enable new broadband competition using cellular spectrum. The cellular carriers have offered cellular broadband for many years through the use of hotspots, but hotspot plans were generally capped at a tiny levels of monthly usage, which differs significantly from FWA, which offers unlimited broadband.

The question that has been nagging me is whether FWA is really the right priority use of spectrum. Spectrum is not an unlimited resource. Cities all have cable company broadband, and an increasing percentage of competition with fiber. The federal government just spent billions on grants to get better broadband to rural areas. At the same time, Starlink has demonstrated that satellites can provide at least one broadband option to almost every rural location.

I’m not saying that the competition brought about by FWA isn’t beneficial, because it is. The FWA industry is probably the biggest reason why cable companies have stopped their annual rate increases and are now offering lower-cost packages.

My nagging concern is that a decade from now, we’ll find there isn’t enough spectrum available for the many other uses of wireless technology. I keep wondering how we found ourselves supporting FWA through the One Big Beautiful bill with no national discussion about whether this is the right policy. Congress has unilaterally decided that FWA is the big winner.

I would have thought that cable companies would be distraught by this, and perhaps they are behind the scenes. This decision must drive WISPs crazy, because the three big cellular companies are being given nearly unlimited spectrum to compete against them, while WISPs are limited to a handful of spectrum bands – which might be shrinking if the FCC finds it necessary to raid 6 GHz spectrum to meet the Congressional directive.

I can’t recall any major policy decision in our industry that was implemented with almost no dialogue or discussion. In the past, we decided spectrum issues through massive amounts of discussion from the industry in the FCC comment process. FWA leaped to become a priority through a few paragraphs in the One Big Beautiful Bill. That’s not how sensible spectrum policy should work.

Broadband Turkeys of 2025

This is my first-ever list of annual broadband turkey awards, which I’m awarding for the worst industry events of 2025. I’ve never done this before, because there have never been enough negative events in a single year to make a list like this. I hope I won’t be able to make a list again at the end of 2026.

5 – Major Cloud Outages

There has been an increasing occurrence of major cloud outages this past year, including outages from Cloudflare, Google Cloud, and Amazon Web Services (AWS). It seems like the outages are growing in severity and breadth due to the growing concentration of the operation of the web into a handful of companies. At the same time, each of these providers also seems to be pursuing the consolidation of their networks into a small number of core data hubs. This combination now means that something as simple as a DNS error can get magnified into a major outage affecting multiple industries and causing billions in damages in a short time. This goes on the turkey award list since every one of us is at the mercy of a prolonged broadband outage caused at some distant data center.

4 – Congress Determining Spectrum Policy

In the Big Beautiful Bill, Congress seemingly usurped spectrum policy by mandating that 800 megahertz of mid-range spectrum be set aside for new FCC auctions. This undoes the historical deliberative process that balanced the needs of the many users of spectrum. This was seemingly done as a way to justify cutting taxes elsewhere, but the real reason behind this new mandate was the cell industry lobbyists doing an end run around everybody else in a land grab for some of the most valuable spectrum. This goes on the turkey award list since the FCC will likely have to raid the spectrum needed for other vital purposes like rural broadband and WiFi.

3 – BEAD Awards to Amazon LEO

In a process that is so absurd that it’s hard to discuss without laughing, we’ve allocated federal grant funding to serve at least 700,000 rural homes to an ISP that currently has no broadband infrastructure, and that has never served a single broadband customer. This might eventually turn out not to be a disaster, but this has to be one of the oddest things that has ever happened in the industry. This goes on the turkey awards list, well . . . because.

2 Killing the Digital Equity Act Funding

The Administration and the NTIA killed funding for grants from the Digital Equity Act, seemingly because the title of the law included the word “equity”. The grants were to tackle digital inclusion and specifically were aimed at making sure that people have access to computers and other devices and that they learn how to use them to increase digital literacy in the country. This decision is hard to understand at a time when the same federal government is forcing the public to interface electronically with government agencies. This same government is also saying that the future of the country is AI. This goes on the turkey award list because we seemed to have made a major policy decision based on misunderstanding the meaning of a word in the title of the law.

 1 Benefit of the Bargain

This was the process of the BEAD grant process that cut funding for broadband grants in half. It’s the most poorly-named process ever in the broadband industry since it isn’t a benefit to the many people who will no longer get a fast broadband solution, and it’s not a bargain for anybody that I can identify. The award goes equally to whoever came up with the plan to cut the BEAD infrastructure grants in half, and to the person who came up with this dreadful name.

A Peek Inside the FCC

I write a lot about the FCC, but I would imagine that a lot of the folks who read this blog don’t realize the many functions handled by the agency. Like any regulatory agency, the FCC staff and Commissioners have been tasked by Congress with a wide range of responsibilities.

The public gets to formally hear from the FCC once each month when the agency has its public meeting. These meetings are where the Commissioners vote on various issues. The monthly meetings operate much like a city council meeting, with items on a public agenda coming up for discussion or a vote.

In the November open meeting, the FCC will be voting on a wide range of issues.

  • The Commissioners will vote on a proposal that is supposed to identify and prevent digital discrimination. The FCC was required to examine this issue by November 15 in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
  • The Commission will consider rules to help victims of domestic violence by helping survivors separate service from their abusers and also protect the privacy of calls made to domestic abuse hotlines.
  • The FCC will debate opening an investigation into the threats posed by artificial intelligence in the generation of robocalls and robotexts.
  • They’ll be looking at rules to thwart cell phone fraud by scammers who take over victims’ cell phone accounts by covertly swapping SIM cards to a new device or porting phone numbers to a new carrier.
  • They will consider rules to modernize ham radio by allowing operators to use digital tools.
  • They will look at a specific case that will reduce regulation in the rural long-distance market.
  • And while not on the listed agenda, the FCC is looking at resetting the definition of broadband to 100/20 Mbps.

The public meetings are only one small piece of what the FCC routinely tackles. Here are a few of the other ongoing functions of the FCC:

  • Is in charge of spectrum policy and use. Decides exactly how each slice of spectrum can be used and who can use it. Was in charge of wireless spectrum auctions – but this is now on hold.
  • Issues licenses to users of services the agency regulates. This includes radio and TV stations. This includes spectrum licenses, such as microwave links. It includes authority for companies to engage in international long-distance.
  • Approves communications devices before they hit the U.S. market. This includes a long list of electronics like computers and peripherals, power adapters, Bluetooth devices, remote control devices, IT equipment, WiFi and other wireless equipment, cellphones and telephones, radio transmitters, garage door openers, etc.
  • Approves and regulates satellite companies that will engage in communications.
  • Oversees the Universal Service Fund through an arrangement with USAC.
  • Participates in a Joint Board with state regulators looking at universal service policies and regulations.
  • Tackles ad hoc issues, like the current push to try to control and eliminate robocalling and spam calls. Another interesting, current effort involves examining how to improve communications for precision agriculture.
  • Is in charge of issuing telephone numbers.
  • Makes certain that those with disabilities have access to communications systems.
  • Oversees disputes from companies that engage in areas the agency regulates. Courts often remand lawsuits filed in the court back to the FCC.
  • Issues fines to companies that break its regulatory rules.
  • Accepts and sometimes tries to mitigate consumer complaints about regulated companies.
  • Coordinates with regulators around the world on issues of common interest, like spectrum usage and device compatibility.