Commercializing Spectrum Is Crucial to America’s Economic and National Security Interests

American networks face a problem: They lack sufficient spectrum over which to operate. The federal government controls too much of this critical resource; the private sector controls too little. The shortage will only compound as time passes. And although many federal officials generally support commercializing more bands of spectrum, when they have acted, they have acted tentatively. Congress allowed the Federal Communication Commission’s (FCC) spectrum auction authority to lapse — and to remain lapsed — and the Biden administration’s strategy (while well-intentioned) substitutes years of study for the concrete, energetic action.

Congress must recognize the economic and national security imperatives attendant on auction-authority reauthorization and spectrum commercialization. It is the Article I branch’s constitutional duty to set federal policy. Nowhere is federal action needed more than in ensuring the American tech sector remains competitive, and that America remains ahead of the Chinese Communist Party’s tech and telecommunications advances.

Last week, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Sen. John Thune (R-N.D.) introduced the Spectrum Pipeline Act of 2024, a bill to renew the FCC’s auction authority through 2027. Further, the bill would direct the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), the manager of federal spectrum, to identify 2500 megahertz (MHz) of mid-band spectrum for commercialization. While the bill contains other measures, there is broad agreement on the need for renewed auction authority as well as for wrestling underutilized spectrum away from federal agencies and into private, commercial uses.

The Senate Commerce Committee is holding a hearing on “Spectrum and National Security” on Thursday, March 21.

Without adequate spectrum, U.S. network performance will lag foreign nations’, disadvantaging American companies and geopolitical interests. America’s rivalry with China is unfolding across diplomatic, economic, and myriad other fora, and its continued competitiveness will rely heavily on robust innovation, technological supremacy, and economic excellence. These will be contingent on robust American networks, whose strength in turn will depend on spectrum liberalization.

Since the nationalization of spectrum in 1927, Washington has returned much of it to private use — but far too slowly. While such users as the Department of Defense must retain enough to provide for national security uses, spectrum’s ideal uses are in the market. As technology has advanced, and demand for spectrum has skyrocketed, federal users’ overgenerous allocations (made in bygone eras) have become starkly untenable.

Without congressional action, auction-authority reauthorization, and a clear plan towards balancing spectrum allocations across technologies and industries, uncertainty will reign in the U.S. economy as well as in the U.S.’s international telecommunications negotiations. While Congress must balance competing interests in designing spectrum policy, and the NTIA cannot forget legitimate federal spectrum needs, the emphatic direction of U.S. spectrum policy must be towards commercialization and liberalization.