AT&T Wants FCC to Set First High-Frequency Spectrum Auction; O'Rielly Supports Relevant Bills
The FCC deserves credit for making more high-frequency spectrum available for 5G, expected at the Thursday commissioners’ meeting, but now the agency has to schedule an auction, blogged Stacey Black, AT&T assistant vice president-federal policy. “Now that the Commission has…
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the 5G ball rolling with spectrum allocations, we urgently need to get to the next step -- auctioning this newly allocated spectrum so that mobile broadband providers can deploy as quickly as possible,” Black wrote Wednesday. “As an industry, we believe the best timing for auctioning the 28 GHz and 37-40 GHz bands is by December 2018. By this time, chipsets and equipment will be commercially available, FCC service rules will have been finalized, and standards will have evolved to a point that permits commercial 5G network deployments in 2019.” At the meeting, regulators will take up an order reallocating the 24 and 47 GHz bands for 5G (see 1710270030). Wireless industry officials expect an auction by the end of next year of bands reallocated in 2016 (see 1711030045). Citing the blog, Commissioner Mike O'Rielly tweeted Wednesday that he concurs on "need & timeliness of 5G spectrum auctions," but the agency "has a statutory hiccup" and he's supporting "targeted bills" by Reps. Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., and Doris Matsui, D-Calif. and by Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D. According to O'Rielly's office, those were references to Guthrie and Matsui's Spectrum Auctions Deposits Act and to similar legislation Thune introduced last Congress and is working on again, though it hasn't been reintroduced.