updated: Including frequencies that overlap with Wi-Fi 6E and private mobile networking
www.theregister.com
A provision in the new US budget bill opens a wide swath of spectrum for sale, including some that overlaps with frequencies currently allotted for private mobile networks and Wi-Fi 6E.
The budget reconciliation bill, which President Trump
signed into law on July 4 as planned, has a
section that gives the Federal Communications Commission permission to begin auctioning off radio frequencies for commercial use again, after its authority to do so expired in 2023.
The bill directs the FCC to auction almost all spectrum from 1.3 GHz to 10.5 GHz, except the slices at 3.1–3.45 GHz and 7.4–8.4 GHz, putting mid-band airwaves once reserved for federal agencies up for commercial sale.
Smack dab in the middle of that span, say worried advocates, are frequencies used for the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS), operating between 3.55 GHz and 3.7 GHz, and Wi-Fi 6E, which uses the 6 GHz range.
"In its quest to generate revenues to pay for the legislation, it potentially puts CBRS and 6 GHz spectrum on the auction block at the FCC," the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association, which represents small wireless carriers, said in a
release denouncing that part of the bill.
For those unfamiliar with CBRS, it's a 150 MHz band of frequencies the US government allocated for private mobile networking. It's compatible with both 4G and 5G wireless signals and is used widely for small, private networks.
"The vast majority of WISPA members employ CBRS and/or 6 GHz services to deliver broadband to their rural and under-resourced communities," WISPA said, warning that auctioning off spectrum in the CBRS and 6 GHz range would "strike at the very heart of those businesses that have so successfully worked to eradicate the digital divide."
There's also the specter of the telecommunications industry exerting pressure on the FCC to auction off the upper half of the 6 GHz spectrum for cellular usage, like
a number of other countries have done.
Ajit Pai, FCC chairman during Trump's first term and
supporter of opening the 6GHz spectrum to unlicensed operation for things like Wi-Fi (which the US ultimately did), is now at the helm of the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (CTIA). The CTIA has pushed for broadening the spectrum available to cellular carriers.
Mike Wendy, communications director at WISPA, told
The Register that he believed those on the large telecom side of the industry would likely want everything up for auction, including the 6GHz and CBRS bands. WISPA opposes auctioning off those portions of the spectrum because there are already too few public parts of the spectrum left.
