Johnson 'Heartened' by US 5G Policy Progress, Despite Rosenworcel, Peters Misgivings

Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., believes President Donald Trump's administration and the FCC are finally unified on 5G strategy and related spectrum issues. That's despite misgivings ranking member Gary Peters, D-Mich., and Democratic FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel voiced during a Thursday committee hearing. The FCC released a draft proposal Tuesday to bar USF funding for the purchase of telecom equipment from companies “posing a national security threat to the integrity of communications networks or the communications supply chain.” The order is seen as targeted at Chinese equipment manufacturers Huawei and ZTE (see 1910300036).

Johnson said a Wednesday conversation with National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow and a recent briefing left him “heartened” and confident that the NEC is taking the lead in coordinating U.S. 5G policy and that Trump, Kudlow and FCC Chairman Ajit Pai are “actively engaged” on 5G issues. Johnson raised misgivings this summer about the federal government's 5G plans amid a public squabble between FCC and Commerce Department officials about potential effects commercial use of spectrum on the 24 GHz band sold in the recent FCC auction would have on weather forecasting technology (see 1906120076).

The FCC-Commerce “roadblock” is no longer an issue, Johnson said during the hearing. The agencies ended the policy kerfuffle in a bid for a united U.S. front at the World Radiocommunication Conference, which began Monday (see 1910310071). Acting NTIA Administrator Diane Rinaldo testified the agency is “working closely” with the FCC and other federal entities on spectrum and supply chain issues. There have been other signs of thawing of interagency relations, including rechartering the Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee (see 1908120048).

The end of the fracas is “a good thing,” but other issues remain, including the commission's decision not to prioritize speeding up reallocating mid-band spectrum, Johnson told reporters. “There's a lot of demand for that spectrum and you have to take” incumbents there “and make sure that they have spectrum as well. There's nothing easy about this.” The agencies “need to let us know” about other potential infighting and issues that Capitol Hill can try to help address, Johnson said. “Everybody's frustrated that we haven't been able to move more expeditiously in terms of freeing up that spectrum,” but “there are legitimate issues and challenges.”

“We are facing well-resourced challenges to our 5G leadership from every direction,” Rosenworcel testified. “We do not have a comprehensive national plan in place with a fully coordinated interagency response.” She noted FCC involvement in proceedings to free up mid-band spectrum, including the 3.7-4.2 GHz C band, but the commission made a “mistake” by earlier emphasizing higher bands. “The rest of the world does not have this singular early focus on high-band, millimeter airwaves,” which “have substantial capacity but their signals do not travel far and are easily blocked,” Rosenworcel said.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State-Cybersecurity and International Communications and Information Policy Robert Strayer suggested the state attorneys general lawsuit against T-Mobile's purchase of Sprint (see 1910210053) is one factor delaying the shift to commercial 5G use of mid-band spectrum.

'4G Laurels' Insufficient

Rosenworcel warned the U.S. has “rested on our 4G laurels,” and that's “not a good place to sit.” She urged a national 5G plan for “smarter spectrum policy” and securing the supply chain. The U.S. needs to emphasize “virtualizing radio access networks” to take advantage of the nation's strength in software and semiconductors, Rosenworcel said. She also said the U.S. should “adjust” its policies to better address IoT security.

Peters said U.S. government 5G efforts “have been piecemeal and disorganized. We do not have the dedicated leadership or the coordinated national strategy needed to accomplish this critical mission.” A “challenge of this magnitude requires a strong, unified and collaborative approach,” he said.

Peters focused on the FCC's supply-chain security proposal, questioning whether a “rip and replace” approach should “apply to all equipment.” Department of Homeland Security Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Christopher Krebs said he would “hesitate” to encourage such a model “globally, across the U.S. and every environment.” The U.S. should examine where the national security threat “truly is,” he said. Rosenworcel said the FCC needs to seek comment on what equipment should be targeted by the proposal before deciding “what dollars we make available to rip and replace it.”

Johnson said he's teeing up legislation for a planned Senate Homeland Security markup next week on allowing the federal government to subpoena telecom companies “to force them to give information on their customers when they're being attacked.” Johnson said during and after the hearing he's writing the legislation in consultation with Krebs. “What he wants is what already exists with other agencies,” Johnson said. “DHS needs the capability of contacting people that they're aware of” facing cyberattacks. “Right now they have no idea who those individuals are,” he said. “You have to go to the telecom companies to get that.”

Johnson used a discussion about which tech firms could be relied upon as trusted vendors to question the FTC's ongoing antitrust lawsuit against Qualcomm (see 1910100017), saying litigation against one of the few U.S.-based 5G equipment suppliers left him puzzled. “I'm kind of scratching my head,” he later told reporters. Supply-chain consolidation is “a legitimate issue that we need to be considering, but if you're just narrowly looking at antitrust and anti-monopoly, we do need to understand” the current global marketplace for 5G. “You've got a command-and-control economy [in China] that steals our IP, where the government fully subsidizes those companies in competition with ours,” he said. “Maybe we need to take a longer-term view” and “not take the few companies in America that we're going to have to rely on to win this race” and “destroy them through lawsuits.”

Spectrum Notebook

FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks continues to believe addressing the national security threat posed by Chinese telecom equipment remains critical, noting Wednesday he has met with nearly two dozen carriers with such equipment in their networks. “Many communications networks in the U.S. and around the world have components manufactured and serviced by Huawei and ZTE,” Starks said at a Denver conference. Experts worldwide "agree that use of this equipment presents significant security risks due to inconsistencies in the equipment’s software code, and, more broadly, due to these manufacturers managing the networks ... from China.” Starks said carriers believe, and he agrees, they did nothing wrong in buying this gear. They'll need financial assistance for any replacement costs, he said.

C-Band Alliance consultant Preston Padden pushed back Thursday against Senate Appropriations Financial Services Subcommittee Chairman John Kennedy's, R-La., vocal criticisms of the group's proposal for a private auction of spectrum on the frequency (see 1910290037). Kennedy has been working to retain Senate Appropriations Committee-backed pro-public auction language (see 1909190079) in the chamber's version of the FY 2020 FCC-FTC budget bill (S-2524) despite opposition from Senate Commerce Committee GOP leaders. “Under [Kennedy's] logic, the government could confiscate and sell the spectrum of every TV and Radio Station in America because the broadcasters did not pay the government for their spectrum,” Padden tweeted. “Reductio ad absurdum!” There “are MANY precedents for private sales of spectrum,” including the 2018 transfers of 39 GHz licenses from FiberTower to AT&T and high-frequency spectrum licenses from Straight Path to Verizon (see 1801180046 and 1802080055), Padden said.