Government Can Improve American Lives by Freeing Up More Wireless Frequencies

By Michael O’Rielly
September 19, 2022

Our ever-increasing wireless world produces cosmic-sized benefits for American consumers and our society. From lifestyle information and health improvements to emergency communications and work productivity, wireless connectivity can sprout longer and fuller lives. Yet, this can only happen if wireless frequencies — slices of the electromagnetic spectrum — are made available for newer and far-reaching technologies. That is not exactly the situation today, and the latest example is with the 12 GHz band, where the case for a great 5G candidate band is being muddled by specious claims of possible problems to existing users. 

By all accounts, additional spectrum is critically needed for next generation wireless services, be it 5G or eventually 6G. Statistics by the wireless industry show mobile data use reaching the stratosphere, soaring by over 100 times in the last decade. Couple this with the need for larger contiguous spectrum blocks (or slices) for unlicensed and licensed uses – think autonomous vehicles and augmented/virtual reality – and you have a major demand issue. On the supply side, all of the past efforts I helped lead to bring more bands to the commercial marketplace haven’t been enough to keep pace. Despite adding C-band, 3.4 GHz, CBRS, and others as newly instituted 5G bands, spectrum experts are clear: U.S. wireless providers face a shortfall of hundreds of megahertz, especially if we seek to remain a world leader in wireless services.

This should be needle-moving for Congress and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to make new mid-bands available, via reallocations or increased sharing regimes. More 5G spectrum bands will bring new and expanded services by existing providers and permit new entrants a chance to obtain spectrum – allowing both to immediately implement vertical use cases, which may have started slow but are starting to ignite like a rocket ship. 

With the spectrum cupboard essentially bare, few good mid-band options for 5G can be found on the horizon. That is why the 12 GHz band makes so much sense. It’s completely free from Federal government users, which have been the 800-pound gorillas of past spectrum fights. It’s also within stone’s throw of other bands so as to be economically viable for manufacturers and network deployers. Lastly, it enjoys the cheering support from so many current band users and the public interest community. These are no small feats in spectrum policy.  

Sadly, standing on the other side of all this is a newer band user Starlink, funded and run by the world’s richest individual, Elon Musk. As you can imagine, he has not been shy in tweeting his position on the 12 GHz band, even if those tweets don’t align with the actual history of the band. In short, he and his satellite offering, Starlink, are objecting to increased terrestrial use of the band on the notion that doing so will cause harm to its satellite broadband subscribers. While I am a huge proponent of low earth orbit satellite services, this is an interesting stance given that Starlink has rights to 15,000 megahertz of other spectrum bands to serve the exact same purpose. From the beginning, Starlink’s right to use 12 GHz was explicitly and meticulously conditioned on accepting interference from other band users. Moreover, its engineering analysis to argue against 5G leadership in the band is extremely tortured, and has fueled a blatantly manipulative write-in campaign to misdirect simple facts. To no surprise, positions such as these just so happen to be the same behavior taken time and time again by those seeking to block spectrum efficiency efforts. 

Appropriately, the fundamental question the FCC is exploring at this stage is whether the 500 MHz at 12 GHz band can be used for expanded land-based uses without disrupting existing users, not which entities should get any resulting licenses or how to award them. Avoiding other contentious issues is smart and makes this solely a judgement of mathematical projection and probability. Any credible examination of the science submitted in the Commission’s record — not the paper-thin, self-serving outcomes of Starlink and its compatriots — shows that it can. But no one has to rely on my word for it, as the Office of Engineering and Technology (OET), one of the crown jewels of the FCC, is closely reviewing the engineering and supporting facts on the matter. OET’s earned reputation for rigorous work is beyond reproach, respected both domestically and internationally. Given its cautious nature, if OET ultimately finds that increased sharing the band can be accomplished, you can take that to the bank.  

If U.S. policymakers want continued success from our wireless ecosystem of providers, innovators, manufacturers, and more, than adding more terrestrial mid-band spectrum is essential. The 12 GHz band is a strong fit for this purpose, assuming OET agrees to permit terrestrial use in a band sharing regime. Any claims to prematurely stop or usurp OET’s work before it is complete should be recognized for what they are – attempts to push away from a science and fact-led process. It shouldn’t work ever, and it shouldn’t work in the evaluation of the 12 GHz band.

Michael O’Rielly is former Commissioner at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), a Visiting Fellow at The Hudson Institute’s Center for the Economics of the Internet and Senior Fellow at the Media Institute.