Why Protecting Wi-Fi and CBRS Is a Smart Policy—and Smart Business

Cellular companies are pushing some policymakers to shift away from traditional efforts to identify federal frequencies that can support commercial services to approaches that would reclaim and repurpose existing commercial bands, redistributing the pie among winners and losers rather than expanding the pie for all. That move would be a massive step backward—and a direct threat to the consumer and economic gains already made. Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) and 6 GHz are not open questions—they are live, working infrastructure. More than 1,000 CBRS operators have deployed over 400,000 base stations in just five years—matching what legacy wireless companies built over four decades. And American manufacturers are supplying the hardware driving this rollout, strengthening domestic supply chains and creating jobs. Congress and the administration have an opportunity to protect this progress. As spectrum policy is debated in reconciliation and beyond, lawmakers should focus on unlocking more federally controlled spectrum—not taking away bands that are already being used successfully and efficiently by the private sector. The CBRS and 6 GHz Wi-Fi bands are working—for consumers, for innovation, and for the U.S. economy. Any attempt to claw them back would undermine the very market forces that made these policies a success. Congress should make clear that these bands are off-limits for reassignment to legacy carriers’ exclusive use, and instead double down on policies that drive competition, investment, and American leadership in the global digital economy.