Monday, April 20, 2020

Commissioner O'Rielly Urges President to Help Free Up Federal Mid-Band Spectrum for 5G

On April 8, FCC Commissioner Michael O'Rielly sent a letter to President Donald Trump that calls attention to our nation's urgent need to put more mid-band spectrum into use for commercial 5G use and to the apparent fact that the U.S. Department of Defense is hesitant to part with any of that spectrum. Commissioner O'Rielly has played a valuable role in several FCC proceedings to make spectrum available for next-generation commercial mobile networks. He is right in imploring the President to engage DoD and find the most practical way to repurpose some of that valuable spectrum in a manner that is worthwhile to the DoD and consistent with our nation's national security interests. 

Both the matter of freeing up spectrum currently belonging to the federal government and interagency cooperative processes regarding spectrum use were topics addressed during the hot topics panel held at the Free State Foundation's Annual Telecom Policy Conference on March 10. The conference panel video and transcript are available online.