WANTED: A BOLD U.S. SPECTRUM POLICY 

By Michael O’Rielly 

Americans are infatuated with their wireless devices and the accompanying services.  Consider that industry stats show consumers possess over 524 million wireless devices in a 275 million population above 15 years old and 97% of Americans own a cellphone.  For many consumers, staying connected from dawn to dusk enhances productivity, communications, entertainment, and more.  But what if government inaction generates the U.S. industry’s contraction, or worse, collapse?  That’s exactly the situation today as U.S. policymakers are seemingly stuck on how best to find more wireless spectrum for commercial purposes, a necessary ingredient for successful wireless recipes.  And the rest of the world will happily take the profits from wireless’ popularity while eagerly preparing to scoop the U.S. in the next wireless revolution.  Responsively, U.S. policymakers should kill its stagnation by pursuing an exceptionally bold spectrum policy that bets on American wireless ingenuity to lead the global marketplace.    

 

There is wide bipartisan recognition from Congress and the Biden Administration that America must identify and reallocate more spectrum for commercial services, be it licensed, unlicensed, or shared, to meet growing consumer demand or endure major consequences.  The undeniable truth is that the current bucket is almost bare.  Study after study shows that we lack the requisite spectrum inventory to enable and fulfill future wireless technologies across the board.  Without strong action on spectrum, congestion on existing allocations will slow consumer connections, strain wireless networks, and shutter device development.  For consumers, their smartphones and tablets will be like trying to operate most ten-year-old laptops: sluggish and frustrating.  On a larger scale, this dearth will punish the functionality and competitiveness of American businesses, thereby serving as a massive drain on U.S. GDP.  Few people give sufficient recognition to the role played by the wireless industry in our economy.         

 

Sadly, the global story is equally disturbing.  With China leading the charge, Japan, France, South Korea, Britain and others are pushing aggressively to allocate more commercial spectrum domestically wireless services.  These countries want to seize on any U.S. passivity in order to steal the lead on 5G and corner the nascent 6G market.  They also see this as way to ensure their consumers have the best and most capable wireless technologies.     

 

Similarly, people should know that China is trying to find friendly nations as the world prepares for the next iteration of the World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC), a quadrennial international spectrum coordination effort to be held in just weeks from now.  The country’s goal is fairly straight-forward: demand new spectrum allocations that prop-up Chinese wireless companies while undercutting the U.S. wireless leadership across licensed and unlicensed spectrum bands. 

 

So, what does going bold mean?  For starters, the Administration must conclude its “spectrum strategy” after two-plus years in the making.  Better yet, it should up the ante to identify 2500 or 3000 MHz of new commercial spectrum and make sure each band is available in the nearer term rather than just vaguely plausible someday for reallocation.  Additionally, the Administration needs to stop coddling Federal agency spectrum users.  Their arguments have proven empty and driven by a fear of missing out, not mission critical threats.  These chicken-little prognosticators scream over spectrum changes to distant bands and phantom interference, and their opposition must not be the basis for resolving disputes with the private sector.  Further, bold means taking WRC-23 more seriously, especially heightening the level of diplomatic participation.  Fumbling the U.S. appointment of a new delegation head has been a problem of our own making.  To rectify, why isn’t Vice President Harris, Secretary Blinken, or Secretary Raimondo showing up in Dubai to secure American wins?   

 

Being audacious on wireless issues can and should be done without undermining recent licensed, unlicensed, and shared spectrum success stories.  Instead, this should be an opportunity -- a call to arms, if you will -- to sidestep our micro-squabbles and attack the commercial shortage problem head-on.  Our purpose should be to push current Federal users out of underused bands and shrink their footprints in line with modern technology.   

 

True and persuasive leadership is actually very hard.  Quite frankly, it’s easier to be called a leader or be elected to a position of leadership than to actually lead.  On spectrum policy, we need real and immediate leadership from the White House and Congress that releases new commercial bands for all types of services.  Doing so will set the U.S. in a position of strength and stymie other countries attempts to break through in the global wireless race. 

CONGRESS SHOULD FINISH & PAY FOR RIP & REPLACE 
By Michael O’Rielly 
  

The U.S. Government has emphatically declared, via various actions and enacted legislation, that certain foreign government involvement in the American homeland can pose substantial dangers to our nation and its citizens.  Indeed, these exact findings have been applied to the U.S. communications sector.  Accordingly, Congress and the current Administration have taken monumental steps in recent years to expel certain companies from offering service in the U.S. and mandated that troubling equipment, mostly from China, be removed from U.S. commercial communications networks.  Despite this bold activity, Congress hasn’t matched its policy outrage and mandates with the necessary funding to actually execute its directives.  People should know that over 60 percent of the network costs to implement what’s best known as “Rip & Replace” is still unfunded and our overall networks are still vulnerable.  While I provided greater deference to Congress in the past on this issue, speed is of the essence.  Congress needs to honor its commitments and provide eligible wireless providers with the outstanding billions in relief after years of being informed of this deficiency.   

 

The potential and actual abuse of U.S. communications networks can cause immeasurable harm.  With improper access, bad actors could disrupt, stop, and/or manipulate communications between and among Americans.  An inability to trust or rely on the content of such communications would wreak havoc on everyday commerce and personal lives.  Moreover, the collection of sensitive communications on a select set of Americans (or alternatively everyone) could help build individual dossiers for future exploits.  Equally troubling, foreign despot regimes could attempt to use affected wireless communication networks not only as entry points, but to spread its nefarious propaganda of Anti-American messages.  Worse yet, compromised equipment could be used as mechanism to stymie or intercept important communications from U.S. military and intelligence units.  To be clear, these are not my made-up reasons for removing questionable equipment from our communications system, but the very ones Congress used in the first place to enact the Rip & Replace program.  And nothing in the four years since its enactment has lessened these concerns. 

 

As a former congressional staffer, I am acutely aware of instances when Congress has promised something and then missed important deadlines.  In some respects, it’s become a new Washington hobby: let a deadline pass and then try to put the pieces back together with as little damage as possible.  Rarer is the case, thankfully, in which Congress has mandated obligations on the private sector with promises to pay for reasonable costs and then did not deliver.  Perhaps the act of short-changing the first tranche of $1.9 billion in funding on the front end was a way to ensure that overall Rip and Replace costs would not get out of control.  Communications practitioners may remember a similar time when consumer set top box coupons for the DTV conversion ran out of funds, thereby requiring Congress to allocate targeted resources to meet the program’s real needs.  With Rip & Replace, everyone now knows the true costs, as certified by the Federal Communications Commission, and the undeniable shortfall stands at $3.08 billion.  And making a challenging situation worse, all participants are on the clock following deadlines last July, leaving less than a year to complete the removal and replacement of this equipment.  That’s an impossible task given the funding shortfall.  Unless Congress acts soon, the program will fail, forcing carriers to “rip” but not “replace” and eliminate wireless service in areas where it’s incredibly important.      

 

The semi-good news is that congressional leaders in both parties seem to recognize the need to fix this situation.  Members point to various legislative vehicles that could be used to carry the needed Rip & Replace funding.  Some want to use the annual appropriations process and others see options with legislation to extend spectrum auction authority, an upcoming congressional supplemental appropriations, or as part of an extension of the Affordable Connectivity Program.  Yet, none of these efforts seems likely to finish in the near term for a multitude of reasons.    

 

This leaves eligible wireless providers in a very precarious position.  Many of these companies are smaller in size and cover more rural and remote terrain.  In our hyper-inflation economy, finances are tighter, preventing wireless operators from bankrolling the costs of removing untrusted equipment or purchasing from trusted vendors on the promise that Congress will act someday.  These companies want to upgrade their networks to remove any stigma of subpar quality as well as modernize for advanced 5G and eventually 6G.     

 

The Rip & Replace program, as required by law, is about plugging a defined weakness in our nation’s communications networks.  Consequently, Congress has the obligation to move away from promising to fully compensate eligible providers and actually accomplishing it by including the requisite funding on the first moving legislative train, such as a stopgap Continuing Resolution.  Anything less puts Americans at unnecessary risk.