DOD Nominee Hegseth Leans Against Repurposing Lower 3 GHz Band
Defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth during his Tuesday Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing appeared to lean against repurposing portions of the 3.1-3.45 GHz band with commercial wireless use, an issue that stalled negotiations during the last Congress on spectrum legislation and is likely to be a flashpoint this year (see Ref:2501070069]). Senate Armed Services member Mike Rounds, R-S.D., was the only panel member who mentioned DOD’s spectrum priorities in the incoming Donald Trump administration during the hearing, which was at times rancorous and primarily focused on the nominee’s past behavior and statements.
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Rounds, a major opponent of legislative attempts to repurpose the lower 3 GHz band for 5G use (see 2212190069), asked that Hegseth “literally go to the mat” during the federal interagency process “to protect warfighter requirements for the use of” that frequency. Rounds also asked Hegseth what he would “do to make sure that [DOD] can maintain its access to and … be able to maneuver within” spectrum that military systems currently use. Rounds’ concerns about backdoor attempts to authorize the sale of portions of the lower 3 GHz band led him to object to Congress renewing the FCC’s spectrum auction authority in March 2023 (see 2303090074), ushering in what’s now been an almost two-year lapse of that mandate.
“I’ve heard from 24 senior DOD officials in hearings” since the beginning of 2023, including outgoing Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, that allowing 5G use of the lower 3 GHz band “would have extremely serious consequences … on our warfighting capabilities,” Rounds said. The Navy Department “alone has estimated that relocating” destroyers’ radar systems “to a different part of the spectrum band would cost them $250 billion.” Later, he said China “would love to have our ability to use that part of the spectrum restricted.”
Hegseth skirted directly answering Rounds but said he would “go to the mat, when necessary, for things I believe are an absolute requirement for [DOD] and the men and women in uniform.” The nominee noted concerns about the lower 3 GHz band have “come up a number of times in meetings” with senators, and he plans getting "a full classified briefing” on the situation if the Senate confirms him. “It’s critically important with how our warfighters communicate across all services,” he said: “I will go in with eyes only toward ensuring we have the capabilities we need and there’s no disruption” to military incumbents.
Joe Kane, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation broadband and spectrum policy director, said Tuesday that Hegseth’s testimony doesn’t completely foreshadow a continued federal impasse on the lower 3 GHz band when Trump returns to office next week. Hegseth seemed to give Rounds "the answer that he wants to hear,” Kane told us. “I would be surprised if he and Trump have had any conversations” about spectrum. The incoming White House’s position on spectrum will become clearer once new National Economic Council leadership comes in because the council's views were “very important” in shaping the first Trump administration’s airwaves policies, Kane said. He noted FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, Trump’s pick to lead the commission, has strongly backed a lower 3 GHz sale and “has more of the ear” of the president-elect than previous agency leaders.
Brookings Institution senior fellow Blair Levin said in an earlier interview that DOD is “much stronger politically in the Congress than the FCC” and that’s likely to remain the case once Trump returns to office. “That doesn’t mean that DOD and the FCC cannot come together and figure out a way of solving” the impasse over the lower 3 GHz band, Levin added.
DOD continues eyeing the lower 3 GHz issue amid questions about whether Trump officials will halt using the Biden administration’s national spectrum strategy and NTIA’s ongoing study with DOD of the band (see 2412120066). DOD said in late December it’s seeking participants in a strategy-mandated partnership with the National Spectrum Consortium aimed at showing “how advancements in one or more of the key spectrum-sharing enablers can achieve the overall objective of proving the viability of spectrum sharing” on the lower 3 GHz band.