Advocates Ask FCC Chairman Not To Take Away 5G Spectrum From Rural America

Public Knowledge joined 20 rural advocacy organizations, rural healthcare providers, rural network operators, and public interest advocates (including the Benton Foundation) in a letter urging Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai to preserve the existing Citizens Band Radio Service (CBRS) rules that enable small providers to offer service in rural areas.

We urge you and your fellow Commissioners to be genuine heroes for rural America. We beg you to stand up to the efforts of giant corporations to steal spectrum allocated for rural users and then choose not to offer all residents access to broadband. The existing CBRS rules were designed with the input of rural stakeholders to recognize the economic realities of deployment in rural America and on Tribal Lands. The changes in the draft R&O once again ignore these realities, and again threaten to leave rural America behind.