The President’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC) urged that the administration balance the interests of wireless carriers and DOD in a letter the group approved at a virtual meeting Wednesday. The letter raises concerns about the congressionally mandated Emerging Mid-Band Radar Spectrum Sharing Feasibility Assessment (EMBRSS) study of the lower 3 GHz band (see 2309280087). Moreover, it says federal use of spectrum must change. Industry officials note the missive is unusual in that NSTAC rarely weighs in on spectrum issues. NSTAC members approved the letter, addressed to President Joe Biden, on a unanimous vote with little discussion.

House leaders removed the NTIA Reauthorization Act (HR-4510) from floor consideration Tuesday amid other committees’ objections to it, the bill’s sponsors told us Wednesday. Chamber leaders previously scheduled consideration of HR-4510 under suspension of the rules (see 2403010073), along with two other telecom-focused bills. The House voted 339-85 Wednesday to pass H.Res. 1061, which amended vehicle HR-4366 to become the Consolidated Appropriations Act FY24 appropriations minibus package that includes reduced funding for NTIA and other Commerce Department agencies compared with FY 2023 but a slight increase for the DOJ Antitrust Division (see 2403040083).

Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., and House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Doris Matsui, D-Calif., voiced varying levels of optimism during a Tuesday Incompas conference (see 2403050052) about the prospects that lawmakers will be able to reach a deal on stopgap funding that will keep the FCC’s affordable connectivity program running past this spring. The FCC said in a Monday update on its wind-down of the program that it will be able to provide only “partial” reimbursements for ACP in May (see 2403040077). Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Mich., highlighted their ongoing interest in enacting legislation to lift or ease permitting processes in a bid to streamline broadband deployments.

NTIA is facing increasing pressure from carriers for additional spectrum for full-power licensed use, and from interests favoring a more open-ended approach, especially in the lower 3 GHz and 7/8 GHz bands, as the agency finalizes an implementation plan for the national spectrum strategy, due for release March 14. DOD is defending its systems in the bands targeted by carriers. Meanwhile, there are questions about how much longer Scott Harris, NTIA senior spectrum adviser, will remain at the agency after the implementation plan is released, industry officials told us.

CTIA countered recent arguments by Spectrum for the Future that wireless carriers don’t face the spectrum shortage they claim and don’t necessarily need the lower 3 GHz band to be allocated for full-power, licensed use (see 402260069). CTIA emphasized cable operators' support for the group. “Cable’s reaction to significant loss in market share is to cut off access to the raw material that would supercharge competition -- dedicated licensed spectrum,” CTIA said in a blog post. Cable operators were shielded from competition for decades, “but today, often for the first time, they face a real competitive threat in the form of 5G home broadband,” CTIA said. A study last year found that carriers need 400 MHz of licensed spectrum in the next three years and nearly 1,500 by 2032 “to meet that demand, fully taking into account 5G efficiencies, additional infrastructure and offload,” CTIA noted. The U.S. has allocated just 450 MHz of mid-band for licensed 5G use “with no plans for more,” the group said. A Spectrum for the Future a spokesperson emailed, "Innovative 5G technologies are being driven by a broad range of commercial users, anchor institutions, and technology companies, not the Big Three legacy carriers." Mobile phones lean more heavily on Wi-Fi connection than traditional carrier networks, the spokesperson said. “America must prioritize diversity in spectrum ownership and use cases -- not rely on exclusive licensing models rooted in the technology of the 1990s." CTIA’s "attacks" are "unsurprising given the cable industry’s recent success in bringing new competition and offering substantial consumer savings to nearly 15 million mobile wireless customers,” an NCTA spokesperson emailed. “Casting aspersions at competitors can grab headlines, but cherry-picked facts and misleading assertions do not form the basis of sound policy.”

House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Bob Latta, R-Ohio, and ranking member Doris Matsui, D-Calif., asked DOD and NTIA Wednesday for an explanation of how they will conduct new studies of the 3.1-3.45 GHz band, which the Biden administration's national spectrum strategy requires (see 2311130048). Both lawmakers strongly supported the House Commerce Committee-cleared Spectrum Auction Reauthorization Act (HR-3565), which proposes selling part of the lower 3 GHz band (see 2305240069). Lawmakers are grappling with reshaping a spectrum legislative package amid stalled talks and the DOD's negative findings last year about the effect that potential 5G use of the lower 3 GHz band would have on incumbent military systems (see 2312280044). The DOD “assessment found that non-federal operations are feasible if certain advanced interference mitigation features and a coordination framework are put in place,” Latta and Matsui said in a letter to NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson and DOD Chief Information Officer John Sherman. The national spectrum strategy's lower 3 GHz mandate provides an “opportunity to build upon” DOD's earlier findings by “studying additional private-sector access” on the band. “Clearly articulating the processes your agencies will use to study this band will help provide certainty for both federal and non-federal users,” the lawmakers said. They emphasized that NTIA developed the strategy “consistent with its statutory role as the sole agency responsible for authorizing Federal spectrum use.” They want insight from Davidson and Sherman about how DOD and NTIA will “co-lead” work on the new studies and “ensure a consistent and evidence-based process is used to establish methodology, assumptions, and parameters.” The legislators also want details about steps the agencies will “take to ensure all opportunities for commercial use in the Lower 3 GHz are fully considered and all relevant stakeholders have the ability to participate.”

Spectrum for the Future, which represents companies and groups focused on unlicensed spectrum, Monday countered wireless carrier arguments that the lower 3 GHz band should be allocated for full-power, licensed use. “First and foremost, the U.S. wireless carriers’ current mid-band spectrum holdings exceed the amount of spectrum dedicated to wireless carriers in China and in many European countries,” the group said. The U.S. has already allocated hundreds of megahertz of mid-band spectrum at 3.65-4 GHz to U.S. carriers, “whereas China has not yet allocated that spectrum,” the group said: “The mobile network operators want you to believe there is a binary choice -- clear the spectrum for our companies or lose to China, or Europe or somebody else.”

The U.S. has slowed down on providing licensed spectrum for 5G, and on some levels “stopped entirely,” said Umair Javed, CTIA senior vice president-spectrum at the State of the Net conference Monday. Some say “all the low-hanging fruit has been plucked” and “we have to accept tighter times ahead,” Javed said, but he disagrees. He noted that since 2018, U.S. carriers have invested $160 billion in their networks, “the largest investment in our nation’s technology base in history.” Making the lower 3 GHz and 7/8 GHz bands available for licensed use would reverse a negative trend, Javed said. U.S. policymakers should look at ways to “segment” the lower 3 GHz and create “a full-power, licensed opportunity in the 3.3-3.45 GHz range,” he said. The 7/8 GHz band offers “an opportunity for the U.S. to plan ahead and lead in the development of a new global 5G band,” he said. That band has been identified by the ITU “as a future harmonization target” and would let the U.S. “match global deployments planned in the 6 GHz band, meaning we will realize economies of scale and be able to participate in a broader equipment market,” he said.

Wireless carriers are concerned and have many questions about the administration's processes for proposed studies under the national spectrum strategy that will examine the future of five bands as part of a possible spectrum pipeline, industry and government officials said. Carriers are most concerned about two bands, the lower 3 GHz and 7/8 GHz, which they see as possible spectrum for full-power licensed use. Meanwhile, USTelecom CEO Jonathan Spalter urged the leaders of the House and Senate Commerce committees Thursday night to reach a deal on legislation to “unite behind a national spectrum strategy” and reinstate the FCC’s lapsed auction authority.

The lower 3 GHz band, a top target for wireless carriers for reallocation for full-power licensed use, remains critical to DOD as well, DOD Chief Information Officer John Sherman said Thursday at NTIA's spectrum policy symposium. The band is one of five targeted for study in the national spectrum strategy (see 2311130048).