Experts Say Carr Will Move Aggressively on Spectrum but Face Challenges

Carr has held forth on more political issues, such as using Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to tackle alleged tech censorship (see 2411210028), but also repeatedly criticized the current administration for not being aggressive enough on spectrum. Carr will face challenges that Pai didn't. The FCC lacks general auction authority and there are few immediate opportunities to reallocate bands for licensed, unlicensed or shared use.

"I am enthusiastic and very optimistic that the next commission, led by the able chair designee, will pursue a much more aggressive spectrum game plan that will free commercial spectrum for licensed, unlicensed, and shared purposes,” former FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly told us. O’Rielly served with Carr through most of the first Trump administration before Nathan Simington replaced him.

“The agency's action to identify bands can facilitate Congress' [acting on] auction authority and non-DOD-involved bands, like lower 12 GHz and maybe more C-band,” O’Rielly said: “But part of that effort will need to be pushing DOD on spectrum and utilities on pole attachment rates.”

Richard Bernhardt, Wireless ISP Association vice president-spectrum and industry, said Carr is “a get-it-done kind of guy” who could “move the ball” on bands “that have been in play for a while.” He cited the lower 12 GHz band (see 2411270046), 37 GHz (see 2409100061) and uncompleted work on 4.9 and 5.9 GHz. “We are hopeful.”

Carr will likely continue “Pai’s aggressive effort to anticipate and meet future needs for licensed, unlicensed and shared spectrum access,” said Michael Calabrese, director of the Wireless Future Program at New America. Carr supported “robust rules to maximize the value of the unlicensed underlay that enable next generation Wi-Fi in 6 GHz, a legacy of the Pai FCC that we expect him to defend and expand upon as industry moves forward on Wi-Fi 7 and 8.”

But others warned that getting quick congressional action on FCC spectrum authority won’t be easy.

Spectrum legislation will be difficult "because of the ongoing conflict between national security Republicans” and Republicans serving on the House and Senate Commerce committees, said Chip Pickering, Incompas CEO. “It really is a committee conflict,” added Pickering, formerly a Republican representative from Mississippi and vice chair of the House Commerce Committee.

During the first 100 days of the new Congress, “there’s going to be so much going on” and “it will still take time before spectrum policy is resolved and authority is granted.”

For Joe Kane, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation director-broadband and spectrum policy, “The lack of auction authority does seem likely to drag on into the new administration, so Carr will be limited by that,” just as FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel has been. Siting could prove a good way “to foster the development of the wireless ecosystem in the absence of more spectrum, but ultimately a lack of commercial spectrum will become an overwhelming bottleneck sooner or later,” he wrote in an email.

Congress, the FCC and the NTIA “have kind of different objectives right now,” Bernhardt said. “If they can align a little bit and understand” that communications is more than just helping the mobile providers, then they could develop “a uniform spectrum approach,” he said: “Right now, we just have this cadre of ideas that are against each other and nothing gets done.”

Carr “has made it clear he thinks the current administration has not moved aggressively on bringing spectrum to auction,” emailed Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld. “But I don't see how to break the impasse in Congress over reauthorizing auction authority if Carr intends to abandon the [memorandum of understanding] between NTIA and the FCC and return to taking a hard line with federal agencies, particularly the DOD.” In 2022, NTIA and the FCC agreed on an updated MOU; it was updated previously in 2003 (see 2208020076).

Trump may have better luck than President Joe Biden did in convincing members of the Senate and House Armed Services committees “to stop blocking auction authority,” Feld said: “That is unlikely to happen if Carr takes an aggressive tone by setting a high target for auctioning federal spectrum, or if he supports auctioning portions of the lower 3 GHz band over the very strenuous objections of DOD.”

The new administration mustn’t forget about private wireless, emailed Enterprise Wireless Alliance President Robin Cohen. “While many business enterprise and critical infrastructure entities’ communication requirements can be fulfilled on commercial networks, many have core responsibilities that cannot be outsourced to the network of a third-party commercial provider and require licensed spectrum for security and operational purposes,” she said.

“Aggressive policies are great but should include spectrum dedicated for business enterprises to address their private internal needs that commercial networks cannot accommodate.”