Pai: US Unprepared to Compete With China on the 'Wireless Future'
The U.S. is “poorly positioned to counter China’s effort to win the wireless future,” said new CTIA President and CEO Ajit Pai in a weekend opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal. Carriers lack enough licensed spectrum to keep up with expected consumer demand, wrote Pai, who served as FCC chairman during the first Trump presidency. “Thanks to AI, 5G home broadband and other emerging technologies, traffic on wireless networks is expected to triple by 2029.”
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He called on Congress to restore FCC spectrum auction authority. “Stripped of this authority, the FCC hasn’t had a major new nationwide 5G auction in three years.” The U.S. must identify and auction “at least 600 megahertz of midband spectrum for future 5G services,” he said. “These auctions could raise as much as $200 billion -- funds that could support Congress’s work on reconciliation and other national priorities, like national security.”
Pai also urged wireless infrastructure reform. “Bottlenecks in the permit process and outdated wireless siting regulations are delaying deployment and driving up costs,” he said. “If we want to build tomorrow’s networks, we can’t do it with yesterday’s rules.”