House Commerce Clears 5G Sale Act; Rodgers Seeks DOD Lower 3 GHz Report Details

The House Commerce Committee voted 46-0 Tuesday to advance its version of the 5G Spectrum Authority Licensing Enforcement Act (HR-5677), clearing the way for floor action on the measure as a stopgap aimed at temporarily restoring parts of the FCC’s lapsed spectrum auction authority. The Senate unanimously cleared original version S-2787 in September amid some lawmakers’ push to jump-start stalled talks on broad spectrum legislation (see 2309220057). The measure would give the FCC authority for 90 days to issue T-Mobile and other winning bidders the licenses they bought in the 2.5 GHz band auction last year (see 2309140051).

House Commerce Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., pressed the Commerce Department during a Tuesday Communications Subcommittee NTIA oversight hearing to provide her and other House leaders with more information on DOD’s report about the potential effects of commercial 5G use of the 3.1-3.45 GHz band on incumbent military systems (see 2311290001). The DOD study and related matters arose repeatedly during the Tuesday hearing, as expected, amid questions about the extent to which Capitol Hill will need to pivot from current House Commerce-approved Spectrum Auction Reauthorization Act (HR-3565) language in reaction to the findings (see 2312040001).

“It is vital that companies that won auctions before” the FCC’s auction mandate lapsed in March “are issued their licenses without further delay,” said House Communications Chairman Bob Latta, R-Ohio. “Now is a critical time to restore trust in our nation’s auction process and this is a good step in that direction.” It’s “been more than a year” since the FCC ended the 2.5 GHz auction and HR-5677/S-2787 “is a commonsense solution to a problem that is specifically keeping rural Americans from better 5G access,” said HR-5677 lead sponsor Rep. John Joyce, R-Pa. FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel endorsed the measure last month (see 2311270071).

HR-5677/S-2787 is “not a long-term solution” to addressing the expiration, “but I’m very glad we’re doing this,” Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., said. “The FCC needs its auction authority restored as soon as possible because U.S. leadership is really at stake.” Rep. Annie Kuster, D-N.H., lambasted the Senate for continuing “to hold up progress” in spectrum bill talks while House Commerce “has made every effort to restore” the FCC’s authority. She said more than 50 2.5 GHz cellsites in her district are “currently sitting inactive” because of the mandate lapse. The Competitive Carriers Association lauded House Commerce for advancing HR-5677.

NTIA Spectrum Concerns

“Despite numerous requests, we have yet to receive” DOD’s complete lower 3 GHz report “and a briefing on the results of that study from the Biden administration,” Rodgers said during the House Communications hearing. “I will again echo that the administration needs to provide us with that information immediately.” She later set a deadline of “the end of this week.” DOD and Commerce held a classified briefing on the findings just before Congress' Thanksgiving recess that included Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. Some senators report having access to the report, which DOD transmitted to Commerce in September (see 2309280087).

Rodgers wants a “classified briefing” that will give her information on DOD's unredacted report, noting “the unclassified version has been distributed in the Senate.” She also wants a “full briefing once NTIA completes” its lower 3 GHz study as part of its implementation of the Biden administration's national spectrum strategy (see 2311130048). Rodgers expressed faith in the coming NTIA study because it’s “the expert agency on spectrum.” She and Latta praised the spectrum strategy, in contrast to Republican FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr’s criticism of it (see 2311150065). Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Mich., criticized the strategy during the Tuesday hearing.

“We are eager to get this information to you,” Davidson said. “We've worked quite hard to try to schedule a briefing” and House Commerce “staff has received a briefing. I am not in control of the actual classified version of the report, which needs to be conveyed in the right and proper way. I would just say we are committed to trying to get this to you as soon as possible and had hoped to have gotten it to you by” Tuesday. DOD didn't immediately comment.

Lawmakers “expect that you and other agencies will be responsive to our requests in a timely manner, which has not been the case recently on certain spectrum matters pending before this administration,” Latta said. House Communications ranking member Doris Matsui, D-Calif., asked Davidson “what steps” NTIA will “take to ensure we've evaluated all opportunities for commercial use” on the lower 3 GHz band via its study of the frequency.

“The lower 3 GHz band in particular is one that is of great interest to both” the federal government and the private sector “because of the special characteristics of that band and that range of bands in the mid-band area,” Davidson said. “It's a very congested band,” so “there's no easy answers” for allowing commercial use on the frequency. “We don’t want to give up on that band,” which is “why you're seeing the follow-on” study as part of the spectrum strategy, he said: “You're seeing us really redouble our efforts to make sure that we do two different things: look at spectrum sharing” of the band “and also look at whether there is possibility of relocating some systems.”

Walberg criticized NTIA for not meeting the 2015 Spectrum Pipeline Act’s January 2022 deadline for identifying 30 MHz of spectrum below 3 GHz for FCC auction (see 1510270063). He cited “troubling” testimony from Rosenworcel last week that the agency wouldn’t be able to auction off the spectrum by the end of 2024 because of executive branch delays (see 2311300069). “I understand” identifying new spectrum for auction requires “complex and technical studies and that federal users have important missions that depend on access to spectrum,” Walberg said. But “we're approaching seven years of study and NTIA has already blown past” its statutory deadline.

Identifying the spectrum Congress mandated in 2015 “turned out to be a hard” and “expensive assignment,” Davidson said. There “was a study that had been ongoing for some time” and “we’re hoping to be able to release the conclusions of that work very soon,” but it’s still going through “an interagency clearance” process. He cautioned that it won't “be the answer that we all had hoped for. It's quite difficult to find a path forward in this band that's been studied to be able to meet those requirements.”