Advanced Wireless Forum  |  2025 Marconi Awards Gala & Institute Forums  |  Los Angeles

Panelists

• Randall Berry, Chair and Professor of ECE, Northwestern University (Panel Chair)
• Charles Cooper, Associate Administrator, Office of Spectrum Management, NTIA
• Ari Fitzgerald, Partner, Communications Group at Hogan Lovells
• Nick Laneman, Professor of Electrical Engineering, University of Notre Dame

Setting the Stage: The State of Spectrum Today

The evolution of wireless technology has expanded the range of usable frequencies and improved spectrum efficiency. At the same time, new wireless applications create ever-greater demand for access to spectrum. Against this backdrop, the panel addressed spectrum utilization and the management of access needed to enable future applications, approaching the topic from a US policy perspective.

Current commercial spectrum allocation in the US is divided across three primary categories:

• High-power exclusive licensed (~1,162 MHz): primarily cellular
• Unlicensed (~1,938 MHz): primarily Wi-Fi
• Lightly licensed/shared (~150 MHz): the CBRS band

The Legislative Moment: OBBBA and the Road Ahead

The panel focused on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) and its implications for the future of commercial spectrum. The OBBBA renews the FCC’s spectrum auction authority through September 30, 2034, and is considered a significant legislative accomplishment.

The OBBBA imposes the following requirements on NTIA (National Telecommunications and Information

Administration) and the FCC (Federal Communications Commission):

NTIA Requirements

• Identify (in consultation with the FCC) 500 megahertz of federal spectrum between 1.3–10.5 GHz to be reallocated for non-federal or shared use by 2029
• Identify at least 200 megahertz of federal spectrum for reallocation by July 2027, and the remaining portion (up to 300 megahertz) by July 2029
• Perform a potential reallocation analysis of three existing federal spectrum bands: 2.7–2.9 GHz, 4.4–4.9 GHz, and 7.25–7.4 GHz
• Publish biennial reports on the value of all federal spectrum holdings in increments of not more than 100 megahertz

FCC Requirements

• Auction at least 100 MHz of Upper C-band spectrum (3.98–4.2 GHz) by July 2027
• Conduct auctions for the initially identified 200 megahertz of federal spectrum by July 2029
• Auction the remaining 300 megahertz of identified federal spectrum by July 2033
• Auction up to an additional 200 megahertz of spectrum (with no frequency limitation) by July 2034

Notably, the OBBBA excludes two heavily contested bands — 3.1–3.45 GHz and 7.4–8.4 GHz — which are used extensively by the Department of Defense and other federal agencies. Defense and national security advocates successfully argued for their exclusion, citing critical national security operations currently conducted in those bands.

Federal Spectrum: Opportunities and Complexity

The panel identified several opportunities for spectrum modernization. The 2.5 GHz band was highlighted as presenting strong prospects for commercial transition: National Weather Service radar systems installed in the early 1990s are aging, and FAA air surveillance radars are similarly outdated. Federal procurement cycles, measured in decades compared to commercial cycles of one to two years, make the current moment well-timed for modernization discussions.

Analysis of the 4 GHz band, starting at 4.94 GHz and working downward, is more complex given usage by multiple federal agencies. Examining the 7 GHz band reveals two primary federal use cases: satellite communications and microwave systems. Department of Defense satellite operations are mainly receive-only. Plans for microwave system spectrum repack are similar to TV broadcast repack.

Valuing the Spectrum Pipeline

Perspective from Randall Berry, Northwestern University

The OBBBA’s requirement to identify 800 MHz of mid-band spectrum for auction has been praised by the cellular industry as providing a needed pipeline for growing consumer demand and emerging 6G requirements. Critics, however, have pointed to decreasing mobile data growth rates and questioned whether this volume of spectrum is truly necessary. As articulated in Coase’s seminal 1959 work, the aim of spectrum policy should be to maximize economic output — making it essential to ask whether this policy leads to genuine improvement in economic value for the country.

Spectrum generates economic value in multiple ways: as a productive input for companies deploying wireless services; through equipment sales and over-the-top services; through consumer utility; and by enabling public goods such as defense, public safety, and scientific research. Crucially, all of the mid-band spectrum targeted in the OBBBA is already creating some form of value from existing uses. Any band identified for auction will have incumbent uses that may need to be modified — requiring an honest accounting of the marginal increase in value for new users against the marginal decrease for incumbents, plus the costs of transition. The OBBBA requirement to publish biannual reports of the value of federal spectrum may provide an opportunity for such an accounting.

The decision to transition a band also affects value over time, not just in the present. Technology changes, as do market demand, societal needs, and business models. The value of any spectrum allocation should therefore reflect the transaction costs of future readjustment — including both the investment costs for deploying new technology and the regulatory costs of changing a band’s use. In the US, flexible-use commercial licenses help reduce these transaction costs by giving licensees broad freedom over technology choice and business model, and by enabling secondary market leasing and trading. Should mobile data growth indeed flatten, this flexibility becomes especially important: it allows commercial spectrum to be transitioned to new uses — potentially including government services — while continuing to create value.

Increasing the amount of flexible-use spectrum, in any amount, can support a more robust market for this resource that better reveals its underlying economic value.

Is 800 MHz Enough? The Case for a Longer-Term Pipeline

Perspectives from Ari Fitzgerald, Hogan Lovells US LLP

While the OBBBA marks a big step forward, 800 megahertz of new commercial spectrum will not be sufficient to keep pace with current and emerging technologies and use cases through July 2034. To maintain its global leadership in advanced wireless services, the US will need to make more midband spectrum available for commercial use. Key factors driving future network needs include:

• AI-enabled smartphones and advanced wearable devices enabling augmented reality
• Applications leveraging integrated sensing and agentic AI
• Growth of Internet of Things (IoT) applications, autonomous systems, and increasing demands for edge computing
• The need for ultra-low latency and additional uplink capacity driven by AI and data-hungry applications

Legacy regulatory processes, including World Radio Conferences (WRC) held every four years and lengthy national processes to identify new spectrum bands, are too slow and fragmented, risking spectrum capacity shortfalls that could slow the deployment of 5G, 6G, and satellite networks, and innovative IoT uses. To avoid these pitfalls, regulators should take the following steps:

• Publish predictable spectrum pipelines: Regulators should commit to multi-year roadmaps showing which bands are under study, decision milestones, and auction windows. Transparency reduces uncertainty and accelerates investment.
• Accelerate technical compatibility studies, co-existence testing, and feasibility assessments: Start interference and sharing analyses early and explore spectrum bands and options concurrently (when possible) to shorten time-to-market. 
• Align national plans with global timelines and pursue spectrum harmonization, whenever possible: The ITU’s WRC cycles set the global pace; national regulators need to pre-scope studies and coordinate regionally so they arrive at WRC-27 and subsequent WRCs with mature proposals, not late starts. While countries may have legitimate reasons for pursuing spectrum policies that diverge from the global norms, choosing harmonization (when possible) supports lower costs to consumers and economies of scale.
• Enforce milestone discipline in the US spectrum pipeline: The OBBBA sets out clear timelines. Meeting those deadlines will help avoid bottlenecks that could stifle innovation.
• Consider staged authorizations and early access to the spectrum bands under consideration (for example, similar to GAA tier access in the CBRS band before conducting the PAL auction). Allowing for limited geographic or power authorizations while compatibility studies are being finalized could help to spur device ecosystems and real-world learning ahead of auctions.
• Leverage mixed approaches: Full-power exclusive use licensed; licensed shared use under a less bureaucratic licensing regime such as “license-by-rule”; and unlicensed — matched to specific spectrum band (including incumbent) realities and use cases so that spectrum is used where it delivers the most value.
• Empower innovators by supporting coexistence research and facilitating test beds and coexistence studies in spectrum not currently allocated for commercial use.
• Require government and commercial systems to be more robust against interference (especially out-of-band interference).
• Provide incentives that encourage wireless operators to more quickly retire less spectrally-efficient technology, so that existing “flexible-use” spectrum bands can be voluntarily re-farmed for advanced services. 

Learning from the Past: CBRS, TV White Space, and Spectrum Assignment

The panel also examined the track record of past spectrum policy experiments to draw lessons for the future.

CBRS (Citizen Broadband Radio Service) has emerged as a notable success by several industry metrics: 421,000 deployed base stations, 1,000 unique operators compared to the handful typical of traditional auctions, and more than 200 participants in the CBRS auction. From a carrier perspective, however, challenges include operational constraints that make the spectrum band less useful for large-scale network deployments. An ecosystem is developing with cable companies, utilities, and educational institutions as licensees, which differs from the three traditional nationwide mobile operator regime that dominates in other higher-powered commercial spectrum bands.

The TV white space experiment of 2008–2014 offers a more cautionary tale. While 180 MHz of spectrum was initially made available, promises such as Microsoft’s 2 million people gaining Internet access were largely unfulfilled.  The program’s complexity and resistance from broadcasters limited its success. That said, the database-driven approach can enable opportunistic networking development. TV white spaces provided a technology foundation that led to the CBRS framework. Success in urban vs rural deployment has varied, however.

On the history of spectrum assignment more broadly, the panel reviewed the FCC’s evolution from a lawyer-heavy comparative hearing process (taking two to three years) to lotteries, which proved problematic when winners were often unqualified to build networks, and ultimately to auctions, introduced to identify the parties best positioned to construct networks. The resulting concentration of spectrum among only three nationwide providers has itself become a cause for concern, as spectrum is a key competitive asset requiring regulatory oversight. However, given the economics of scale in an industry such as cellular, concentration is not necessarily bad for consumers.

Emerging Demands: V2X, Satellites, and Drones

Looking ahead, the panel surveyed several emerging technology areas with significant spectrum implications.

Spectrum needs to accommodate evolving and emerging technologies were discussed. The spectrum allocation for automotive/V2X (Vehicle-to-Everything) applications was cited as one example. As the auto industry has failed to deploy in a timely manner, the spectrum allocation in the 5.9 GHz band was reduced from 75 MHz to 30 MHz and the lost spectrum was shifted to unlicensed Wi-Fi. The FCC believes that the remaining 30 MHz will be sufficient for infrastructure-to-vehicle communications, although the spectrum requirements for vehicle architectures beyond 2028 remain undefined.

Other spectrum needs discussed included SpaceX’s Gen 2 spectrum plans. Its acquisition of Echostar’s midband spectrum has given it access to that company’s 2GHz spectrum licenses, creating a precedent for satellite spectrum payments. Congress has prevented the FCC from using auctions to assign spectrum designated for global satellite services. Globally, spectrum requests for drone applications have all been increasing.

Academic Research and Spectrum Innovation

The panel highlighted the growing role of academic research in advancing spectrum policy and technology. Spectrum X is an NSF Spectrum Innovation Center involving 27 universities led by the University of Notre Dame and including Northwestern University. Through a memorandum of agreement, the center partners with NTIA and FCC to conduct research on multiple coexistence methods across user types for cellular, Wi-Fi, federal, science, and public safety applications. In partnership with NTIA, SpectrumX is helping to address the requirement in OBBBA for biannual valuations of federal spectrum.

Global Spectrum Policy Divergence

The discussion focused primarily on US spectrum policy. With respect to 6 GHz band allocation, differences in global spectrum policy were noted:

• US: Full 6GHz band allocated for unlicensed use
• Europe/Asia: Portion allocated for IMT/5G mobile

The process for identifying the 800 MHz targeted for auction mentioned earlier was also brought up, citing Senator Cruz as the main architect of that approach.