Industry Focus Remains on 3.1 GHz Despite DOD Concerns

Wireless carriers remain hopeful on the outlook for the 3.1-3.45 GHz band, despite recent comments by John Sherman, DOD chief information officer, about the high costs and long time frame for clearing the spectrum (see 2209190061). Industry experts note spectrum in recent FCC auctions has come with some protection for incumbent users, which will likely also be the case for 3.1 GHz.

“Sharing in this spectrum space must be our watchword,” Sherman said. “For us to have to vacate this part of the spectrum would be absolutely untenable. … It would take us two decades and hundreds of billions of dollars to move out of the space.” Sherman said DOD’s “equities” in that band “are critical for national security.”

“It’s a band that’s already been identified that people have spent a lot of time thinking about,” Wireless Infrastructure Association President Patrick Halley told us: “We should continue to work constructively together, industry and government, to figure out how to most effectively use that band, and as quickly as possible.”

“Everybody looks at lower 3 [GHz] as one of the next big chunks of spectrum we can get moving on,” FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr told a Wireless ISP Association conference Wednesday (see 2210050052).

Several industry lawyers compared DOD’s stance to an opening negotiating position. The House approved HR-7624 in July, which would renew the FCC's auction authority through March 31, 2024, and authorize sales of 3.1-3.45 GHz spectrum licenses (see 2207280052). In 2021, Congress approved $50 million in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) for a 3.1-3.45 GHz study, to be done by DOD, with the support of NTIA (see 2111120050).

A recent CTIA -sponsored report (see 2209280044) identified the band as critical to 5G, saying it “offers reliable coverage and adequate range of coverage, making it ideal for 5G data traffic.”

Long timelines and relatively high costs won’t be an impediment to carriers, said Recon Analytics’ Roger Entner. Most spectrum takes almost 10 years to clear and providers just spent more than $103 billion for the C-band and 3.45 GHz spectrum, he said. “The money is clearly there, and I hope we don’t plan to use the same radars we have now for another 20 years when our global rivals are massively expanding their arsenals with the newest equipment,” he said.

"America's spectrum pipeline has run dry and it is imperative for all parties to work together to refill it as soon as possible,” emailed Cooley’s Robert McDowell. The band is “attractive ‘Goldilocks’ spectrum, and it has been considered longer than some other bands being discussed,” he said: “But conditioning it to eliminate harmful interference may not be easy. That said, through the IIJA Congress has mandated that this band be studied and a solution workable for all parties identified. So odds are strong that it will be used for commercial mobile use eventually despite current concern. It is just a matter of when and under what conditions."

The latest from DOD shouldn’t “meaningfully” change the level of commercial interest in the band, said Joe Kane, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation director-broadband and spectrum policy. DOD “has said consistently that outright clearing the entire 3.1-3.45 GHz band is a nonstarter from their perspective and that sharing is the only option for commercial use,” he said.

“The exact parameters and sensitivity of the uses the DOD currently has in that band have been big unknowns, and those will be the main determinant of how restrictive a sharing framework will be,” Kane said. He considers the band “a good test case for the wireless industry to work with the Defense Department to find positive-sum solutions even when the band has critical and classified incumbencies.”

“There is an incredibly strong demand for mid-band commercial spectrum” and the lower 3 GHz band “is one of the most important candidates,” said Seth Cooper, Free State Foundation director-policy studies. “One can appreciate the steps that federal agencies previously have taken to repurpose spectrum for commercial use, but more will need to be freed up,” he said. Cooper noted that by some accounts the federal government remains the primary user for more than 60% of the spectrum between 3 and 8.4 GHz.

“3.1-3.45 GHz will obviously be a challenge … as federal incumbents don't want to operate at different frequencies, but hopefully the engineering and logistics will be resolved quickly to allow for licensed operations without any disruption to federal operations,” said American Action Forum Technology and Innovation Policy Director Jeffrey Westling.

“5G capabilities have arrived and the challenge in the market is to best leverage those capabilities to offer compelling new services to public and private enterprises and consumers,” Wiley Rein’s Scott Delacourt blogged Wednesday: “Meeting those demands will require more spectrum, as will laying the groundwork for the inevitable sixth generation of wireless technology.”