Holding an Upper C-Band Auction in 2 Years Won't Be Easy: Carr Aide
Arpan Sura, an aide to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, warned Wednesday that the agency faces a huge amount of work to meet a congressional mandate to auction the upper C band in two years. “It’s a very aggressive timeline,” Sura said during a Center for Strategic and International Studies conference. Other speakers said federal spectrum work has continued despite the longest federal shutdown in history. Commissioners are to vote next week on an upper C-band NPRM (see 2510290047).
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“I see a lot of room for optimism” and “a real plan to achieve our economic and national security interests when it comes to spectrum,” Sura said. “The surest sign” that federal agencies are working together on spectrum is that “we have legislation that tells us what to do” following enactment last summer of the reconciliation package, which requires that the government provide a spectrum pipeline (see 2507070045). “That helps a lot -- there’s no ambiguity about what our assignments are,” he said.
In the upper C band, the FCC has to propose and adopt rules, finalize auction procedures and begin and end an auction in less than 24 months, Sura said, noting that in the past, it has taken the government “close to a decade” to plan and hold an auction in some bands. “We’re happy with the legislation, and we’re up to the challenge.”
Coordination between agencies on spectrum has gone well during the government shutdown, said Brooke Donilon, NTIA's chief of staff. The Interdepartment Radio Advisory Committee has continued its work, she noted. The upper C-band is very important to the FCC, and “we are moving very quickly on that.” Despite the shutdown, NTIA has been working on studies of the 2.7 and 4.4 GHz bands “so that we can quickly have those out the door when the government opens.”
Giulia McHenry, AT&T's senior vice president for public policy and a former FCC economist, emphasized that “project management is essential” for auctions and “almost a religion” for the FCC’s Auctions Division. Every auction is unique and requires offering different incentives and addressing different impediments, she said.
AT&T needs access to bands that are internationally harmonized and where equipment will be available, McHenry said. “We’re very excited about C band” and also interested in 4 GHz.
CTIA’s biggest message to the government is “we need action now,” said Umair Javed, the group's general counsel, who was also a top aide to former FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. “We spent many years marveling at the problem” and establishing new bureaucracies and processes, and that work was important, he said. Javed noted that it can take a year for the government to start a band study. “We need to look under the hood on that. … Can we accelerate that process?”
Federal agencies that control bands that are being evaluated for auction shouldn’t drive the studies, though their input is important, Javed said. That “creates a possible conflict of interest,” which is often ignored, and the past few spectrum studies have all recommended more study. “They haven’t actually produced actionable results,” he said. “Are we going to try that again or are we going to do something different?”
Anyone who knows NTIA Administrator Arielle Roth “knows it’s not going to take a year for her to do a study,” Donilon said. “I wouldn’t worry too much about that.” Under federal law, there are steps NTIA has to take, and agencies must be able to also see the benefits of moving to other spectrum, she said. As a result of White House pressure, DOD and other agencies are also increasingly willing to come to the table, she added. “We want to make as much federal spectrum available as possible.”
Threat From China
Matt Pearl, director of the CSIS Strategic Technologies Program, tied the future of AI to the need for spectrum in the U.S. for wireless deployments. The U.S. is in “an AI race” with China, and the stakes couldn’t be higher, he said. AI depends on “fast, low-latency wireless connectivity,” and that “simply cannot happen” without industry access to new, large blocks of midband spectrum.
“The nation that controls and prevails in AI is going to have extraordinary economic and national security advantages and enduring ones,” Pearl said. “That will shape the balance of power globally for decades to come.” If the U.S. loses the AI race, on some levels, nothing else matters from a national security perspective, he said. The nation has “real momentum” on spectrum, including the mandate from Congress to create a midband pipeline. Everything will “depend on successful execution,” he said. “I would not underestimate how many political and technical challenges there will be.”
“If we fail on spectrum, we fail on AI -- that’s what’s at stake,” Javed agreed. The outcome will have “consequences for generations to come.” He cited a recent Accenture study, which found that without more licensed spectrum, carriers won't be able to meet a third of the AI traffic during peak hours.
The geopolitical threat from China is “undeniable,” Sura said. “Spectrum is geopolitically significant, and it’s important that this administration looks at it that way.” Delays cost companies money, “and as regulators, that’s something we have to keep in mind,” he said. “You need alignment across the entire federal government.”