WISPA’s VP of Policy, Louis Peraertz, notes the FCC’s work to open up more spectrum – as seen in the Commission’s 5.9 GHz and 3.3–3.5 GHz proposals today – continues the good and necessary efforts to provide the raw resource underpinning the evolving U.S. wireless broadband marketplace.  

Today, the Senate Commerce Committee passed out of Committee S. 2881, the 5G Spectrum Act of 2019, which will free up for new uses 280 MHz of C-band spectrum via an FCC-administered, public auction. Though S. 2881 does not require any sharing, it does not preclude it either.  This is, we believe, a tacit recognition by policymakers that spectrum sharing models must play an integral and growing role in alleviating the near ceaseless demand for spectrum.  

WISPA's VP of Government Affairs, Christina Mason, thanks the U.S. House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology and the FCC for focusing on finding new spectrum for commercial use, as discussed in today's House FCC oversight hearing.

Today, Chairman Pai announced that he will circulate a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking which would allocate 45 megahertz of the 5.9 GHz band for commercial unlicensed use.  Since it will be contiguous with other unlicensed spectrum, this could enable wireless internet service providers to offer faster services to their current customers and expand their service footprints. 

The U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee held a full committee markup of, among other pieces of legislation, H.R. 4227, the “Mapping Accuracy Promotes Services Act’’ or the “MAPS Act” - a bill which prohibits the submission of inaccurate information to the FCC as it redoes its broadband maps.  Though WISPA is encouraged by the MAPS Act, as well as Congress' interest in creating better broadband maps, the bill could be improved by not promoting the collection of latency and other quality of service information, which is not focused on broadband availability.   

Senators Wicker and Thune today released draft legislation that would require a public auction of 280 MHz of C-band spectrum, with FCC Chairman Ajit Pai also noting today that he will seek to auction off 280 MHz of C-band via an FCC run public auction.  The positive developments, especially at the FCC, leave open the possibility that with a few technical rule changes, the FCC could easily and quickly permit new coordinated point-to-multi-point uses in the C-band.