Fight Over C Band Speaks to Process 'Failure,' Speakers Say at CES

The fight over the C band shows a recurring pattern on spectrum decisions, with agencies and incumbents raising new objections after the FCC makes a decision, officials said during a CES 5G panel, streamed from Las Vegas Thursday. “We shouldn’t see agencies fighting on CNN,” said Asad Ramzanali, legislative director to Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif.: “That’s not a good thing.” None of the FCC commissioners attended CES. Commissioner Nathan Simington was scheduled to speak on the 5G panel but was unable to attend, officials said.

“There seems to be a resolution that all parties have kind of nodded their heads and said ‘OK, we can work with this,’ which is a good thing,” Ramzanali said of the C band (see 2201040070). But the process was a “failure” of government agencies “to be able to coordinate at the right time,” he said. “When there’s a process, those impacted should be participating,” he said.

“The recent process has not been the way it’s supposed to work,” said John Godfrey, Samsung Electronics America senior vice president-public policy. The FCC manages spectrum “through an open, fact-based process, and they did that with C band,” he said. The new pattern is other federal agencies raising concerns after an FCC decision, he said. It’s too late after an FCC decision to submit new data, he said: “That’s not good for the country. It’s human nature to ignore a problem until you have to address it. That’s not good enough.”

Godfrey and Ramzanali agreed NTIA has a big role in coordination. “Right now the NTIA is without a leader,” since the Senate hasn't confirmed Alan Davidson (see 2201050056), Ramzanali said: “That should be a priority.”

The C-band fight is “what we’re seeing happen with a fairly regular occurrence in these disputes over commercial spectrum,” agreed David Grossman, CTA vice president-regulatory affairs. The Senate needs to act on Davidson and confirm a full slate of commissioners at the FCC and FTC, he said.

The big change since CES last met in-person two years ago is that 5G “is here,” Godfrey said: “It has been deployed nationwide. It’s reachable by most Americans. It has become mainstream.”

“Two years ago, the conversation was much more theoretical,” said Emily Hebein, aide to Rep. Bob Latta, R-Ohio: “Congress and regulators are actually having to think about practical implementations and solutions that are problems now that [5G] is actually being deployed.”

The FCC “has done a great job” in making spectrum available for 5G, Hebein said. “A big point is keeping the pipeline full for the next 10 years,” she said. The 2.5 GHz band is “the low-hanging fruit” now and the FCC should move quickly to hold an auction, she said: “We need to continue looking at freeing up spectrum in an efficient manner.”

Congress’ role “is to oversee the FCC,” Ramzanali said. The FCC decides “the details on what should happen in a certain band,” he said. “We just get to ask the tough questions, and they get to do the hard work,” he said. Congress has become more focused on dynamic sharing and the geographic sizes of blocks in auctions, he said: “If you go too big you’re leaving out smaller competitive carriers.”

Spectrum is critical to John Deere, said Deanna Kovar, vice president-production & precision agriculture systems. “John Deere is a technology company … and connectivity is one of those technologies that’s core to our ability to continue to help farmers increase their output, lower their costs and improve sustainability,” she said.

Farmers need data to make their operations more efficient, Kovar said: “For two decades, farmers have been collecting data, but for half that time that data was locked away in binders on a shelf.” Since 2011, Deere has been building connected tractors, she said. Most farmers still don’t have 5G and some farmland doesn’t have any connection to the internet, she said.

Rural areas need 5G, Hebein said: “John Deere can build the coolest autonomous tractor, but that doesn’t really mean so much if the farmer cannot connect … and see the dataflow from his iPhone.”

Speakers agreed the $65 billion for broadband in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act should help rural areas. “The federal government doesn’t have the best track record allocating money for broadband, and we’re still not doing a good job at it,” Hebein said: “We really need to make sure this money is going to its intended targets.” Ramzanali said “it’s unbelievable” the FCC still doesn’t have accurate broadband maps.