FCC Commissioner and incoming Chairman Brendan Carr on Tuesday discussed empowering local broadcasters, moving "aggressively” on USF revisions and opening up the space economy and jumpstarting spectrum policy. Speaking at the Practising Law Institute's 42nd Annual Institute on Telecommunications Policy & Regulation, Carr said he's “really looking forward” to taking the commission's top seat.
The FCC unanimously approved an order aligning rules for the 24 GHz band with decisions made at the World Radiocommunication Conference held five years ago (WRC-19). Released Monday, the order aligns part 30 of the commission’s rules for mobile operations in the band with Resolution 750 limits adopted at WRC-19 to protect the passive 23.6-24 GHz band from unwanted emissions on time frames adopted at the conference.
Tapped to lead the FCC during the second Trump administration (see 2411170001), FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr is expected to be as aggressive as possible on spectrum and wireless siting issues, industry experts said. During President-elect Donald Trump's first administration, then-Chairman Ajit Pai made Carr lead commissioner on wireless siting.
Supporters of opening the lower 12 GHz band for fixed wireless use remain hopeful about a favorable FCC decision. That's despite the opposition from SpaceX and the major role its CEO, Elon Musk, is now playing ahead of the start of the second Trump presidency. FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, President-elect Donald Trump's choice to lead the agency, has said repeatedly he will follow the guidance of FCC engineers about the band's future (see 2207140053).
House Communications Subcommittee member Rep. John Joyce, R-Pa., said during a Wednesday USTelecom event he wants renewed pushes to restore the FCC’s lapsed spectrum auction authority and enact a broadband permitting revamp legislative package to be among the subpanel’s top priorities in the next Congress. Broadband executives likewise named Capitol Hill action on broadband permitting legislation as their top congressional priority once Republicans have control of both chambers in January. The officials also noted interest in lawmakers’ work on a potential USF revamp.
The Biden administration is making progress on each of the five bands it's studying as part of the national spectrum strategy (see 2311130048), Shiva Goel, NTIA senior adviser-spectrum policy, said during a Center for Strategic and International Studies webinar late Thursday. Other speakers said the government must make available more high-powered licensed spectrum to ensure the nation doesn’t fall behind China and other competitors.
CTA is optimistic it can work with the new Trump administration on tech issues, two of the group's top policy officials told us. The outlook on spectrum policy and other issues isn’t completely clear, they added.
During a Thursday Incompas virtual event, communications industry lawyers offered few clues about which lawmakers will fill vacant top GOP slots on the House and Senate Communications subcommittees, but CEO Chip Pickering forecast substantial leadership continuity on both chambers’ Commerce committees. Pickering and lawyers who spoke at the event, meanwhile, saw limited prospects during the lame-duck session that Congress would advance a spectrum legislative package or funding for the FCC’s lapsed affordable connectivity program and Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program.
Three former Republican FCC commissioners agreed Thursday that the Trump administration will likely focus on making more spectrum available for 5G and 6G, but conceded that the bands targeted by wireless carriers won’t be easy to address. Harold Furchtgott-Roth, director of the Hudson Institute's Center for the Economics of the Internet, joined Cooley’s Robert McDowell and Mike O’Rielly, now a consultant, during a Hudson forum.
AT&T CEO John Stankey urged lawmakers and the incoming Trump administration in a Tuesday Fortune opinion essay “to act in favor of broader coverage and lower prices by moving past” conducting more studies on reallocating midband spectrum bands, as the Biden administration has emphasized. The government should instead release those frequencies, Stankey wrote. He also endorsed the 2024 Spectrum Pipeline Act (S-3909), which “reauthorizes the FCC’s auction authority and directs the agency to license mid-band airwaves for full-power mobile broadband services. And because auctions, spectrum clearing, and development of sharing mechanisms can take years, it’s important that Congress act expeditiously next year to make it law.” The proposal, led by Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, “is a smart spectrum policy that will stimulate investment, and deliver better mobile coverage and capacity, including in underserved areas,” Stankey said: “It’ll also mean more competition in home broadband by facilitating fixed wireless services in geographically remote places that have been historically harder to reach with wired connections.” Should he becomes Senate Commerce chairman in the next Congress, as observers expect, Cruz will likely prioritize the Spectrum Pipeline Act rather than pursue legislation resembling the rival Spectrum and National Security Act (S-4207) Democrats back (see 2410290039). Stankey acknowledged DOD concerns about repurposing midband frequencies that currently include military incumbents but said “true national security requires the soft power that comes with a vibrant, competitive economy that makes America the world’s best place to develop cutting-edge technology and enables robust networks that can carry the essential load during unplanned events.” It’s “in the Pentagon’s interest to make an earnest effort to balance the legitimate needs of the military with those of American consumers and businesses to have access to world-class mobile infrastructure."