Report Highlights Link Between Spectrum Policy and National Security

A new report published by the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) warns that absent a heightened focus on our national spectrum policy, "[t]he security of the United States as a market democracy is at stake." In the simplest of terms, online activity is only as secure as the underlying apps and network infrastructure over which it occurs. If that software and hardware is to come from trusted sources, policymakers must foster an environment in which America's mobile marketplace maintains a powerful say in global technology development, "especially as autocratic nations seek to dominate."

In Part 1 of "Concrete National Security Benefits of Spectrum Allocation for Commercial 5G," CSIS Strategic Technologies Program Senior Fellow Clete Johnson identifies two "difficult technical feats" that the U.S. must and can accomplish if it is to achieve the scale necessary to drive technology development down a secure and trusted path. The first is to better harmonize frequency use, as "[t]he more that U.S. spectrum use is harmonized with that of allies and global markets, the more scale trusted suppliers have for secure technology development." The second is to allocate sufficient spectrum so that capacity does not constrain the economic might of American consumers.

Harmonizing the frequencies allocated to 5G (and successor standards) is essential to achieving economies of scale because technology development is frequency specific: equipment developed for one band typically cannot be used in other bands. As the report points out, however, "the United States is becoming a mid-band spectrum 'island,' operating largely outside the core globally harmonized spectrum bands. If this trajectory continues, the U.S. technology ecosystem will be confined to a U.S.-only spectrum 'dialect' that lacks global influence and scale."

Allocating sufficient spectrum to satisfy growing mobile broadband demand, meanwhile, maximizes the economic ability of 350 million American consumers to shape global technology decisions. As the report explains:

U.S. wireless companies need sufficient spectrum resources to collaborate with like-minded nations in innovating and manufacturing advanced wireless technologies and components – including chipsets, software, radios, and more – for use in both the commercial and federal sectors…. The existing disparity between U.S. licensed mid-band spectrum allocations as compared to the rest of the world has become a major national security challenge, as it has created a platform for China to shape the near-term and future technology environment to its strategic advantage.

The report proposes several ways to address this situation. They include:

• Reframing the spectrum deficit as "an optimization challenge, not a scarcity problem."
• Moving from a "zero-sum" mindset that pits government and commercial uses against each other to a collaborative environment that promotes "static" and, in the longer term, "dynamic" spectrum sharing solutions.
• Restoring the FCC's spectrum auction authority.
• Aggressively pursuing harmonization opportunities, which may include the 7/8 GHz band, so that America speaks the same "frequency 'language'" as its allies.

The report's forthcoming Part 2 primarily will focus "on the importance of agile spectrum management capabilities in the context of electronic warfare."