Sens Luján, Fischer Urge FCC to Preserve Critical Broadband Service That Boosts Rural and Tribal Broadband, Promotes Military Readiness, and Supports American Manufacturing

We write to request that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) preserve the current rules, power levels, and frameworks governing the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) band (3.55–3.70 GHz) to protect rural and Tribal broadband, promote military readiness, and support American manufacturing. CBRS’s low-power, shared-spectrum model has become vital infrastructure nationwide, with network hardware produced from American design, construction, and investment. Today, there are over 422,000 active CBRS radio devices deployed across the country. To put that in perspective, the entire U.S. wireless industry combined cumulatively operates nearly 250,000 macro cellular sites. This growth is not theoretical—CBRS is already deployed in more than 82 percent of U.S. counties that are predominantly rural, helping deliver cost-effective connectivity and closing gaps in unserved and underserved communities, including on Tribal lands. Given the critical nature of this band, we urge the FCC to reject changes that would upend CBRS’s carefully calibrated mid-power operating model—including proposals to increase power levels or otherwise modify the technical rules in ways that raise interference risk, degrade service, “squeeze out” users, or move users to a different band. Such changes would reduce spectrum efficiency and undermine the very facilities and community networks that rely on CBRS today. CBRS works because its rules are stable, predictable, and engineered for coexistence. We respectfully request the FCC preserve the existing CBRS framework and technical protections to ensure continued success.