High Tech Forum

06/02/2025

New post: Untangling Contradictions in Spectrum Policy

For the longest time, US Internet users relied on cable modem and DSL for their connections. Cable had a big advantage in speed, where it emphasized downloads over uploads.

The tables have turned and the cable industry is in bad shape, losing 431,000 subs in Q4 2024 per MoffettNathanson. This the fifth consecutive quarter of record subscriber loss with no apparent end in sight.

Meanwhile, competitive services Fiber to the Premise (FTTP), Fixed Wireless Access (FWA), and Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite broadband are adding customers: FWA added 924,000 subs and FTTP added 558,000 during this quarter. LEO is still relatively insignificant, with less than two percent of the market, but we can expect a growth spurt thanks to the pending reset of the BEAD program.

See https://hightechforum.org/unraveling-contradictions-in-spectrum-policy/ for the whole post.

the FCC should ignore the pleas of self-appointed Wi-Fi advocates who don’t have the best interests of Wi-Fi users at heart

04/01/2025

Dubious Arguments for 7 GHz Wi-Fi

A number of recent studies claim that Wi-Fi is on the verge of collapse – or radical slowdown – unless the FCC assigns the 7 GHz band to unlicensed use:

“The Near Future Requires Additional Unlicensed Spectrum” – CableLabs

“6GHz Wi-Fi: Powering the Future of Enterprise Connectivity” – IDC

“Wi-Fi Innovation and Future Spectrum Allocation” – ABI

These papers follow a common pattern, overstating the role of Wi-Fi in homes and offices, exaggerating the adoption of 6 GHz Wi-Fi devices, overstating the value of super-wide 320 MHz Wi-Fi channels, ignoring the value of competing demands for 7 GHz spectrum, and failing to consider the obvious fact that Wi-Fi can benefit more from mmWave spectrum than from mid-band spectrum. They rely on previous speculative work commissioned by the cable and Wi-Fi industries, “Assessing the Economic Value of Wi-Fi” (Telecom Advisory Services LLC) and “Spectrum Needs of Wi-Fi 7” (Intel.)

Remarkably, none of these analyses offers realistic application scenarios for multi-gigabit mobile devices. Astonishingly, the studies fail to realize that their demand for spectrum assignments meant to achieve parity between wireless and wired networks undermine their arguments for locking 5G wireless operators and LEO satellite constellations out of the 7 GHz band.

Most Internet Data is Generated by Desktop Computers

It’s widely understood that mobile devices offload traffic onto Wi-Fi networks inside homes and offices. Open Signal finds that 82 – 86% of the indoor mobile device data is offloaded from the Big Three cellular networks onto Wi-Fi, with seven times as much download as upload.

Cable Labs exaggerates and distorts this finding, claiming: The workhorse of connectivity, Wi-Fi carries more than 90 percent of all consumer internet traffic. This claim is grossly false because it ignores the fact that most consumer Internet traffic is consumed by desktop computers and stationary devices rather than smartphones. Mobile devices aren’t the biggest generators of network traffic, desktop computers, TV sets, and video streamers are.

Cloudflare Radar’s 2024 Year in Review report provides the necessary context. In developed countries such as the United States, desktops are responsible for 67.8% of Internet data compared to 32.2% for mobile devices.

The highest proportion of wireless to desktop Internet are found in the least-developed countries, such as Sudan, Cuba, Syria, and Malawi. These are countries that were probably wireless-only for many years, when the cellular network provided the only path to the Internet.

An Aside on Data Laundering

In the course of examining the references in the three papers, I noticed some amazing transformative work on network traffic estimation. ABI cites Assessing the Economic Value of Wi-Fi for estimates about in-home traffic growth: Indeed, one study has forecast that, between 2024 and 2027, total Wi-Fi traffic in the United States is set to increase by 83%.

Assessing derives its forecast by extrapolating from an already-extrapolated prediction about 2023 US wireless traffic made in Cisco’s 2018 Annual Internet Report. That’s right, Cisco predicted 2023 wireless traffic in a 2018 report, and Assessing’s author Raul Katz extrapolates from Cisco’s prediction all the way to 2027, even throwing in a double-fabricated CAGR.

Wi-Fi Forward passes off this magical number to regulators and policy makers as a perfectly sound basis for proactive assignment of spectrum to forestall an utterly imaginary condition of “spectrum exhaust.” Cable Labs echoes this prediction as well:

The new devices and applications will increasingly require higher speeds and lower latencies to work. A recent ABI Research report projects that current-standard (6 GHz-supported) Wi-Fi devices will grow from 95 million in 2024 to 367 million in 2029 — an increase of 288 percent in just five years — in North America alone.

My goodness, Cisco’s discontinued Annual Internet Reports were great sources, but not this great.

6 GHz Wi-Fi Adoption

Wi-Fi equipment manufacturers are less than enthusiastic about the 6 GHz band. Leading consumer market firms TP-Link and Asus offer dual-band Wi-Fi 7 routers with no support for 6 GHz at all; the semi-pro Wi-Fi 7 access point lines from Unifi and TP-Link Omada also offer dual-band options for both ceiling mount indoor and wall mount outdoor use.

More costly Wi-Fi routers from Asus and TP-Link Deco come in quad-band configurations that split the 6 GHz band into two sub-bands, where one sub-band is dedicated to wireless mesh backhaul. In quad-band configuration, the number of 320 MHz channels is reduced from three to two.

Wi-Fi 7 has to coexist with Wi-Fi 6E in the 6 GHz band. Currently, no Apple iPad or MacBook devices support Wi-Fi 7; it finally broke into the iPhone line with the model 16, however. Most current Apple products do support 6 GHz Wi-Fi 6E, however.

The principal barrier to tri-band Wi-Fi 7 is the cost/benefit tradeoff. Dual-band Wi-Fi 7 routers and ceiling mount access points retail for $100, while tri-band models are at least twice as costly. Effective use of the 6 GHz band also requires Automated Frequency Control (AFC), a feature currently only provided by top-of-the-line products such as the $500 Unifi E7 access point.

While Wi-Fi 7 has significant technical advantages over previous versions, they’re not enough to induce users to abandon their current devices for unnecessary upgrades. Wi-Fi 7 will ultimately be incorporated into smartphones, tablets, and media devices which will reach consumers in the normal replacement cycle. Wi-Fi 7 will not pe*****te IoT devices, most of which remain stuck in the 2.4GHz band.

320 MHz Channels

Wi-Fi devices don’t always use the parameters we’ve told them to use. A Wi-Fi 7 device configured to use 320 MHz channels will only do so when it can find enough contiguous spectrum at one of its five preferred locations that is relatively free from interference.

Given that Wi-Fi 6E has been on the market twice as long as Wi-Fi 7, most networks will need to support both standards. When this is the case, the inventory of available wide channels shrinks. Presently, half of 6 GHz Wi-Fi devices use Wi-Fi 6 (with its 160 MHz channels) and half use Wi-Fi 7.

Wide channels don’t propagate as well as narrow ones because of power limits and the chance of encountering interference. Hence, Wi-Fi 7 broadcasters seem to prefer 160 MHz channels in most scenarios. This is actually fine, because well-designed Wi-Fi networks can provide excellent performance – meeting application needs - over the narrower channels.

Competing Demands for 7 GHz

Despite the lukewarm adoption of 6 GHz Wi-Fi products, advocacy groups such as Wi-Fi Forward are already advocating for an additional 875 MHz of unlicensed mid-band spectrum in the 7 GHz band. This band is also coveted by the military for high-resolution radar, by the cellular industry for Fixed Wireless Access and other applications, and by satellite constellations such as Starlink for residential broadband use.

The spectrum mid-band was once defined as 1 – 6 GHz, but is commonly seen as ranging from 3 to 8.5 GHz today. The mid-band is properly seen as providing the best combination of coverage and performance for the current batch of mobile devices using the current generation of signal processing chips.

The low band is best for coverage, while the high band (AKA “mmWave”) provides the best performance. Propagation is obviously more important for residential broadband networks than it is for indoor, 20–25-foot networks such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

mmWave vs. Mid-band Spectrum

Wi-Fi wants to be as fast in its little domain as residential broadband, which means multi-gigabits per second. It will come closer to meeting this goal if it moves to the higher frequency mmWave band, from 9 to 25 GHz, where the interference environment is more compatible with extremely high channel widths.

This observation leads us to wonder whether prominent Wi-Fi advocates such as Cable Labs and its partners Spectrum for the Future and Wi-Fi Forward have Wi-Fi’s best interests at heart. Starlink and FWA have both been successful at attracting residential broadband customers, much to the dismay of the cable industry.

Cable is accustomed to monopoly market share in both linear TV and broadband, two services where market conditions have changed radically in just five years. Both cable TV and cable broadband have lost subscribers since 2023.

Residential Broadband

The fastest growing segment of the broadband market today is FWA, with 12 million subscribers at the end of 2024 and a projected 20 million by 2028. Despite the rapid growth, FWA performance is improving at 50% per year; T-Mobile’s median download speed is over 200 Mbps. For these numbers to continue past 2028, FWA will need more spectrum, preferably in the mid-band. And yes, Wi-Fi will need more spectrum some day.

The mmWave band is the best source for new Wi-Fi spectrum because its limited propagation permits reuse from home to home and apartment to apartment. mmWave Wi-Fi will require buy-in from chip manufacturers and Wi-Fi equipment vendors. They have concerns about the dual-edged sword of propagation (it must be good enough to pe*****te interior walls but no exterior ones) which really come down to errors of placement.

Most Wi-Fi users today use all-in-one devices that combine network functions such as firewalls and routing in the same box as Wi-Fi, wide area modems, and Ethernet switches. These devices are rarely well-placed for wireless propagation.

Enterprise Wi-Fi follows a different patten, where Wi-Fi radios are separate from basic network functions. This allows a single ceiling-mounted access point to be placed in the center of the home where it’s relatively immune from neighborhood interference while retaining the ability to serve the entire floor. Prosumer Wi-Fi systems such as Unifi and Omada follow this efficient pattern. Sound installation practices moot the need for more spectrum.

Multi-gigabit Applications

As a way of justifying even more allocations of unlicensed spectrum, advocates point to future applications such as 8K TV, virtual reality, and AI. This group of applications has been touted for several years without much consumer acceptance.

This hasn’t prevented advocates from making wild claims about their bandwidth needs. Intel’s “Spectrum Needs of Wi-Fi 7” paper, cited by ABI as proof that three 320 MHz channels will not meet consumer demand in the near future (the opposite of what Intel claims,) indulges in gross exaggeration of application needs:

…video traffic will continue to be the dominant traffic in many Wi-Fi deployments. With the emergence of 4k and 8k video (uncompressed rate of 20 Gbps), we are experiencing these applications’ ever- increasing throughput and bandwidth requirements.

In fact, 8K video is neither emergent nor as bandwidth-hungry as the researchers claim. Uncompressed video doesn’t exist in networked environments and YouTube recommends coding High Dynamic Range, High Framerate 8K video uploads at 150 to 300 Mbps.

Given that 8K TVs are more common on the floors of consumer electronics shows than in American homes, 4K video at the recommended video bitrate of 12–20 Mbps will do fine for the foreseeable future. While no one knows whether AI will increase consumer demands for high bitrate transfers, current experience with LLMs embedded in search results, synthetic images, and synthetic video doesn’t suggest a need for higher resolution than HD or 4K.

Wired and Wireless Parity

Without meaning to, advocates for more unlicensed spectrum make arguments that are applicable to network operator needs for more licensed spectrum. We have traditionally accepted asymmetries in network performance for different roles: uploads don’t need to be fast as downloads, and networks that serve groups of users need to be more capacious than any one user’s feed.

Wi-Fi and CBRS advocates (often the same people) now seem to be demanding parity for connections into and out of the home and those within the home. We’ve accepted that gigabit speeds to the home may be necessary to serve the needs of homes full of video-addicted teenagers. But we’re now being asked to believe that homes need multi-gigabit speeds to each individual user.

This can only be true if multiple super bandwidth-hungry wireless devices were in play at the same time within large numbers of homes. The only example we’re yet seen of such a device is the virtual reality headset. As ABI acknowledges:

The devices that will exert the heaviest strain on the new 6 GHz band will be emerging consumer devices like smart glasses VR HMDs, which, although not shipping in the same volume as the con­sumer devices above, will cause an outsized impact on home networks due to their high-performance demands.

ABI forecasts exponential growth for headsets, as many other prognosticators have done for three decades. It’s an exciting technology, but I’m no longer holding my breath for its wide adoption.

Parts of the Whole

Most of the data Wi-Fi touches comes from or to Internet service providers using a variety of technologies such as fiber optics, ground-based FWA, space networks such as Starlink, and rusty old cable modem. Even within the home, Wi-Fi is dependent on Ethernet as the proximate source and destination of all of its data. If ISP networks can’t keep up with ever-more powerful Wi-Fi, the capacity of Wi-Fi and all of the equipment and electricity that powers it goes to waste.

In fact, Wi-Fi is a supporting actor in the Internet movie. Like all supporting actors, its range is severely limited; 20 feet in most cases. Most data is consumed by desktop computers, wired video cameras, and stationary TV sets. Homes and offices connect to ISPs over wired and licensed wireless connections.

Wi-Fi’s role is small because unlicensed spectrum can’t be scaled to the distances needed to connect neighborhoods, let alone cities, states, nations, and continents. The genuine spectrum needs of in-home networks can easily be met without cannibalizing the services that connect homes to the Internet as a whole.

Wi-Fi’s current ask would create a 3000 MHz block of contiguous spectrum in the band most suited for wide area military and civilian use. Simply put, this demand is outrageous.

01/24/2025

I finally canceled cable modem service after 27 years. It’s funny what it would take a networking guy like me – e.g., I wrote the program that my installer used to set up my initial cable modem Internet service – so long to figure out I don’t need it, but I got there in the end.

My inspiration came from watching the cable industry’s chief lobbyist, Michael Powell, testifying at a House Comms & Tech subcommittee hearing on spectrum policy yesterday. Plain as day, the former FCC chairman said: “Wi-Fi effectively IS the Internet.”

That being the case, I immediately unplugged my cable modem and fired up Wi-Fi. Sure enough, I was able to internet through my phone just by turning on Wi-Fi hotspot.

[click for the rest of the story]

I finally canceled cable modem service after 27 years. It's funny what it would take a networking guy like me - e.g., I wrote the program that my installer used to set up my initial cable modem Internet service - so long to figure out I don't need it, but I got there in the end. My inspiration ca

04/11/2024

https://hightechforum.org/some-history-on-unlicensed-spectrum/

Some history on unlicensed spectrum

In 1985, the FCC issued the nearly forgotten "Spread Spectrum Order" making 234.5 Mhz of radio frequency spectrum available in three bands to any device certified by the FCC to conform to rules about the strength of the signal it transmitted. This order was slightly revised in 1990 after manufacturers raised questions about implementation details.

In 1997, the FCC added 200 MHz of spectrum from 5.15 to 5.35 GHz to the 125 MHz allocated in 5 GHz in the 1985 order and took back 25 MHz. Hence, it assigned 300 GHz in three 5 GHz U-NII sub-bands.

In 2003, the Commission added 255 MHz to the unlicensed pool, from 5.47-5.725 GHz, increasing the 5 GHz allocation to 555 MHz.

In 2014 the FCC added back the 25Ghz starting at 5.825 GHz that had been in the 1985 order,

In 2020, it added 45 MHz of unlicensed close to the upper edge of 5 GHz. It added another 1,200 MHz raging from the high end of 5 GHz to the lower end of 7 GHz (and everything in between) in its infamous 6 GHz order also in 2020.

Summing it up

Today, 700 MHz of spectrum in the 5 GHz band is unlicensed, as well as 1125 in the 6-7 GHz band. All in all, 2084.5 MHz has been assigned in the sub-millimeter wave bands; on average every nine years the FCC adds 400 MHz to the unlicensed pool. This is contrary to wild claims that you may have read.

In a few years, none of this is likely to matter much. The largest pool of contiguous unlicensed spectrum is the 7,000 MHz allocated in the 2013 Wi-Gig order. This band hasn't been heavily used because of technical limitations, but it may well be the future of Wi-Fi.

This spectrum is used in outdoor networks as backhaul for public Wi-Fi and other networks. Cambium Networks sells a 7.6 GBps device that does just this.

Millimeter wave Wi-Fi

The big hang-up for indoor use has been the belief that signals in this band can't pe*****te walls, but Airvine says it has solved this problem. They point out that interior walls are generally made of sheetrock, a material that is transparent to 60 GHz signals:

Common building materials include sheetrock (aka drywall), wood, glass, brick, stone, metal, and concrete. Sheetrock is found in all modern office buildings, but the others will also be present in many cases. A sheetrock wall is fairly transparent to 60 GHz signals and usually consists of two 5/8 inch pieces of gypsum separated by an air gap of about 4 inches. That gap is often filled with soundproofing material, but these substances are not dense and are easily pe*****ted. Places where you might run into metal include elevator shafts that are usually in the center of the building. Glass can be divided into interior single-pane glass that is easily pe*****ted and exterior dual-pane glass with a metallic coating that is almost totally impenetrable to 60 GHz signals. The latter is actually a good thing as it prevents interior RF from escaping the work area, and exterior RF from entering the work area.

Hence, 60 GHz solves two problems: it passes through walls but is stopped by exterior windows, limiting interference with neighbors. If Wi-Fi will kindly shift to 60 GHz indoors we won't need to rob 5G and 6G of the spectrum they need for high-speed, outdoor mobile coverage.

Two ways to solve every spectrum problem

There are always at least two ways to solve every wireless congestion problem: we can throw more spectrum at it or we can do better engineering. Airvine appears to have taken the latter course.

We often say we have to use spectrum intelligently because they aren't making more of it. But there is never a shortage of clever engineers who can figure out how to make use of available spectrum resources.

The FCC has done the heavy lifting by making a jaw-dropping band of 60 GHz available to the wireless industry for unlicensed use. All the industry has to do is seize the opportunity.

The 3 GHz band is uniquely good for mobile networks. It's a shame to see it wasted on generic applications such as CBRS and in-home Wi-Fi when much more appropriate bands ar

In 1985, the FCC issued the nearly forgotten "Spread Spectrum Order" making 234.5 Mhz of radio frequency spectrum available in three bands to any device certified by the FCC to conform to rules about the strength of the signal it transmitted. This order was slightly revised in 1990 after manufacture

03/20/2024

Leading wireless tech news outlet Fierce Wireless published my op-ed in support of the Spectrum Pipeline Act of 2024 today. The bill will be discussed along with other national security issues in tomorrow’s hearing the Senate Commerce Committee, Spectrum and National Security.

The main point is that the FCC has already allocated 2 GHz of mid-band for unlicensed use, including 80 MHz in the very important C-Band. Meanwhile, full-power licensed spectrum – the lifeblood of 5G – languishes with a mere 450 Mhz of mid-band.

Compared to Japan and China, we’re barely even in the game. In nearly all instances, Wi-Fi signals can only travel 20 feet before performance drops off.

Assigning 4 times as much spectrum to a 20 foot network as we allocate to a network that provides near-universal coverage is insane. Residential broadband is shifting from the too-familiar cable hegemony to a combination of fixed wireless access (FWA,) low earth orbit satellites (like StarLink,) and fiber as well as traditional cable.

We all benefit from the emerging competition in this market, and that means correcting our spectrum imbalance.

Here’s a snippet:

FWA dominates net adds for residential broadband. Per Leichtman Research Group: Fixed wireless services accounted for 104% of the total net broadband additions in 2023, compared to 90% of the net adds in 2022, and 20% of the net adds in 2021

Between FTTH with higher ceiling and FWA with lower prices – and no linear TV to fall back on – cable is caught in the pincers. It can’t go after fiber because Congress is in love with it, but FWA has a vulnerability: Its future depends on government decisions about spectrum allocation.

Hence, depriving 5G FWA of access to spectrum makes business sense to cable, even if the means of doing so – over-allocating Wi-Fi in the name of a better internet experience – is absurd.

Share with your contacts if you please.

Industry Voices are op-eds from industry experts or analysts invited to contribute by Fierce staff. They do not represent the opinions of Fierce. | A Wi-Fi pioneer argues that Wi-Fi lobbyists should not be trying to take precious mid-band spectrum from mobile network operators.

01/18/2024

Comments in support of the NPRM tend to repeat arguments made in support of the hyper-regulation of broadband Internet service providers (ISPs) over the last two decades. The theme of these arguments can be summarized:

1. The market for Internet services is dominated by monopolies with gatekeeper power.
2. Even in competitive markets, ISPs have a new kind of monopoly, a “terminating access monopoly,” that reinforces their power.
3. Gatekeepers want to extort edge service providers such as Google, Facebook, X, and Netflix for access to Internet users on favorable terms.
4. Privacy and free speech are uniquely threatened by gatekeepers.
5. The only way to make gatekeepers behave is to shackle them with (often vague) regulations enforced by an expert agency according to the pressures of the moment.
6. If ISPs behave according to our wishes, the rest of the Internet will be fine.

When these ideas emerged from the Stanford Law School in the late 1990s, the ISP market was highly concentrated. Professors Mark Lemley and Lawrence Lessig and their proteges Tim Wu and Barbara van Schewick wanted structural separation between monopoly broadband providers and over-the-top ISPs following the blueprint of laws passed in the European Union and, in some readings, by the 1996 Telecom Act.

When the courts refused to uphold structural separation in the US, these advocates turned to behavioral rules to protect the openness and neutrality of the Internet. Even with structural separation, the EU adopted behavioral rules of its own because they judged the results of structural separation to be less than ideal, chiefly for its corrosive effects on innovation, investment, and free expression.

The only new arguments deal with issues cited by the DC Circuit Court in the Mozilla v. FCC case. These secondary concerns are described as pole attachment, Lifeline, public safety, national security, and privacy. While the issues are real, they can all be resolved without Title II reclassification, as we can see from the fact that the FCC’s Title II order was only in effect for two years while the FCC managed to keep the sky from falling all along.

The NPRM repeats this line of argument and the comments by pro-Title II organizations (T2O) such as Free Press, Public Knowledge, New America’s Open Technology Institute, Engine, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation reinforce it.
Fortunately, the ISP marketplace is wildly less concentrated and more competitive today than it was prior to the turn of the century. In today’s market, there is no longer a rationale for bright line rules banning conduct that has never taken place on a substantial scale. There is significant risk that the ban on for-fee traffic shaping (AKA “paid prioritization”,) the mandate for free interconnection, and a murky general conduct standard will be applied in ways that prevent more sophisticated network management and greater network efficiency.

It is also concerning that T2O advocates continue to blame virtually all the Internet’s shortcomings on ISPs. The disregard for privacy, threats to national security, the lack of consistent and reasonable speech moderation practices, weak network management by public safety, and lax cyber defenses overall will not be curbed by the order contemplated by this NPRM.
The RIF Order does need to be recast so that the FCC retains authority over the secondary issues as well as the authority to preempt state laws in conflict with federal policy. Reliance on ancillary authority has always been sufficient for this purpose in the past.

Rather than going forward with backward-looking Title II regulations it would be wise for the FCC to issue a Further NPRM seeking comment on the state of competition in the Broadband ISP market. The NPRM barely touches this topic, but it’s actually at the center of the current issue set. There is ...

10/17/2023

If net neutrality didn’t exist, would it be necessary to invent it? It’s not like tech policy makers don’t have a host of pressing issues begging for resolution. Off the top of my head:

1. Putting radio frequency spectrum to its best and highest uses
2. Enabling poor people to enjoy the Internet’s benefits through ACP and other means
3. Closing the broadband coverage gap through the BEAD program or other means
4. Protecting Internet users from identity theft through privacy regulations and other means
5. Stemming the tide of intentionally harmful disinformation undermining public health
6. Curbing the Internet’s propensity to form concentrations of market power through unchecked mergers and acquisitions
7. Effectively unregulated marketplaces for illicit goods and services
8. Rampant theft of intellectual property
9. Ransomware and other forms of black-hat hacking
10. Malicious gatekeeping
…et alia and et cetera.

So why does the FCC majority seem to think that it needs to spend a good chunk of its time on a twenty year old open issue that has never made a positive difference anywhere at any time? This is one of tech policy’s most mysterious conundrums.

[See my post]

I would much rather see the FCC spend its free time on the spectrum problem than fooling around with Title II. But that takes the agency focusing more on what the country needs and less on its institutional self-esteem. That's harsh, but it's consistent with what's actually happening in 2023

08/30/2023

The Pentagon is dragging its feet on freeing up lower 3 GHz spectrum for general-purpose networks. The delay is unwarranted.

Disinformation and ineptitude play outsized roles in US technology policy. We see this dynamic play out on several fronts, from public health to military readiness to support for innovation, but perhaps most prominently in spectrum access rights.

The Defense Department has long advocated for a spectrum policy that puts itself in the driver’s seat as the primary holder of spectrum rights, as we discussed in the last post. Some sectors of the US tech economy want to hamstring 5G, as they correctly see its use to supply residential broadband as a threat to their entrenched positions, so the Pentagon has allies.

The latest front on the battle for spectrum rights is in the lower 3GHz band, from 3.3 to 3.45 GHz. The US delegation to the World Radiocommunications Conference (WRC-23) advocates using 3.3-3.4GHz across the Americas Region for 5G, but the Pentagon and commercial allies prefer to dictate its terms of use to something like the dysfunctional CBRS model. [click for more...]

In both 5G coexistence and support for our allies, the Pentagon should focus more on the immediate goal and less on tactics. Despite its penchant for debate, the Pentagon has little relevant experience in either field.