Raimondo Plans Hill-NTIA-DOD Briefing on Lower 3 GHz Study

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo publicly committed Wednesday to brief Senate Commerce Committee members on the DOD study on repurposing the 3.1-3.45 GHz band for commercial 5G use sent to the Commerce Department last week (see 2309280087). Panel ranking member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and several other members raised questions about the DOD study during a hearing on implementing the 2022 Chips and Science Act.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., meanwhile, said Wednesday she’s pursuing an amendment to the Senate Commerce Committee’s FAA Reauthorization Act (S-1939) that would create an R&D grant program to ensure “the telecom industry and the FAA can meet installation requirements for next-gen radio by 2024” in a bid to “help mitigate the FAA broadband carrier dispute over 5G in planes.” Both Blackburn and Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., invoked the 2022 public conflict between wireless carriers rolling out commercial operations on the C band and the aviation industry over potential altimeter interference, during a confirmation hearing with FAA administrator nominee Michael Whitaker (see 2201180065).

Cruz raised concerns that the DOD report “has not been made public,” but leaks to the media indicated it “does not support sharing” of the lower 3 GHz band “let alone allowing full-powered 5G use” on the frequency (see 2309190001). The U.S. needs “a real mid-band spectrum pipeline” so it “can dominate in 5G and not fall behind our adversaries,” including China, Cruz said. Access to that spectrum “has become almost impossible to come by,” primarily because DOD and other federal agencies are “resistant to sharing” space on bands their systems currently occupy.

Raimondo told Cruz she wants to brief Senate Commerce members with NTIA and DOD officials to go over the report. She positioned Commerce as a neutral arbiter, noting she spoke with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin last week after the report’s transmission “and I said ‘the DOD needs the spectrum they need to execute their mission, period.’” But federal agencies “also need to be more creative and innovative about how we share spectrum and how we use spectrum,” Raimondo said: “The truth of the matter is our national defense depends on … continued private sector innovation and continued innovation in 5G.”

“This shouldn’t be a zero-sum game,” Raimondo said. “We shouldn’t think every time [DOD] shares or gives something up, they’re losing capacity” to conduct their mission. She later told Senate Armed Services Committee ranking member Roger Wicker, R-Miss., she hasn’t “gone through” the entire report and “we’re going through it now.” Federal officials “have to modernize our thinking,” because “if we’re creative,” DOD can “have everything they need” and “we must make more available for private innovation because that advances national security as well,” Raimondo said. Senate Appropriations Financial Services Subcommittee member John Kennedy, R-La., separately sought a multi-agency briefing on the lower 3 GHz fracas in hopes of reaching a compromise.

Wicker Seeks Compromise

“I’d like to see that [report] and I now think we have the assurance that” Senate Commerce Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., “would like to facilitate” a briefing to contextualize the report findings, Wicker told us after the hearing. He asked Raimondo whether “there are areas of the report that you disagree with” but didn’t get a clear response. “I agree with” Raimondo’s assertion that “there’s room for both sides to benefit” on the lower 3 GHz band “and for neither side to have a loss … that’s not necessary,” Wicker said during the hearing. “To the extent that the report coming from [DOD] is more restrictive in that regard, I would have a problem with that.”

Cantwell told us the briefing is necessary because “everybody’s still wondering where we are” on putting together a spectrum legislative deal, since talks have been slow while DOD was still conducting its study. Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., also backed the briefing during the hearing.

“They’re anxious to get something done and we had something teed up before” as a proposed amendment to the FY 2023 appropriations omnibus package “that kind of fell apart in the dark of night” amid objections from Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., over language affecting the lower 3 GHz band (see 2212270029), Cantwell said. “Everybody kept saying ‘wait until September’” so DOD could complete the report “and now September’s come and gone, they have this information, so let’s see if we can figure this out.”

“We’ll see” what the DOD report “actually says” about the lower 3 GHz band before supporters of auctioning parts of the frequency decide whether to abandon that plan, Cantwell told us. “There are lots of discussions from the past about what we could do here” that lawmakers could revisit, “but obviously we’re trying to keep the U.S. leadership” on 5G as the priority. Cantwell backs the House Commerce Committee’s Spectrum Auction Reauthorization Act (HR-3565), which proposes a lower 3 GHz spectrum sale (see 2305240069).

FAA Hearing

Installing next-generation radio altimeters on all U.S. aircraft is “something that we need to see completed,” Blackburn said during the Whitaker hearing. Her amendment proposes an FAA-led grant program to develop standards and technology necessary to meet a Jan. 1, 2028, deadline to install the updated gear on “all necessary aircraft.” FAA would coordinate with the FCC, NTIA and other federal entities on the program, “including through public-private partnership grants.”

The amendment wouldn’t “apply to efforts to retrofit the existing supply of altimeters in place” at the time of the FAA renewal’s enactment. Congress extended the existing FAA authorizing statute through Dec. 31 as part of a continuing resolution to extend federal appropriations through Nov. 17 that President Joe Biden signed Saturday. Senate Commerce faced repeated delays in advancing S-1939.

Whitaker didn’t specifically address Blackburn’s amendment but told Blackburn “there’s been tremendous progress in resolving this issue and I know that the industry is equipped.” Up to 90% of existing altimeters are now equipped to mitigate “any interference from the 5G,” but “I’ll continue to work with you in making sure that is completed,” he said.

Capito called the litany of recent spectrum policymaking disputes between the FCC and other federal agencies, including FAA and DOD, over repurposing spectrum bands for commercial 5G use a “fiasco” and a “never-ending story” that’s now lasted for years. She asked Whitaker to “commit to being a strong advocate to seek to avoid these similar issues, sit down at the table and work these things out so that we don’t lay it at the table at the last minute to try to decide what direction to go.” Whitaker agreed, saying “collaboration is a good way to avoid” misunderstandings “and to reach alignment on a lot of difficult issues like that.”