The NDAA Airwaves Play

As the Senate geared up to pass its defense policy bill, the office of Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) unsuccessfully pushed to add language that would require that a provision mandating Pentagon-led test beds to examine sharing 5G airwaves come with a requirement that the government “solicit and consider the input of commercial wireless service providers, equipment manufacturers, and firms developing and operating spectrum sharing technologies” as part of planning. 

New America’s Michael Calabrese confirmed this language comes from his public interest coalition, which was consulted about DoD’s proposed test beds. He said including this particular addition would be “important since it ensures input from a wide range of wireless interests, not only the mobile industry, which is always pushing to clear DoD off bands where that simply isn’t going to happen in the foreseeable future.” Watch for more debate over these provisions when the Senate and House move to conference their two versions of the defense legislation later this year (and where we expect more pushback from the wireless industry, which fears the Senate language about 5G test beds could amount to a jurisdictional power grab on the part of the Pentagon).