Unlicensed

The Senate version of the budget reconciliation bill, backed by President Donald Trump, removes protections for unlicensed spectrum that broadens the capacity of the 6GHz Wi-Fi band. This could result in slower Wi-Fi speeds.

Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Ranking Member of the Senate Commerce Committee, criticized new reconciliation bill language released today by Chairman Ted Cruz (R-TX) which forces states receiving BEAD funding to choose between expanding broadband or protecting consumers from AI harms for ten years.

A group of 23 internet service providers in Texas, backed by the industry group Wireless Internet Service Providers Association, sent a letter to two Senators with concerns about proposed changes to a widely used stretch of shared spectrum featured in the president’s budget bill. The letter notes several concerns about the spectrum policy proposals included in the Senate version of the budget reconciliation bill, also known as the One Big Beautiful Bill, championed by the Trump administration.

Nearly 90 percent of the internet traffic to and from our smartphones never touch our mobile carrier’s network. Instead, that traffic flows seamlessly through Wi-Fi, and that’s no accident. Wi-Fi is available for us to use because a whole host of people and organizations have spent decades preserving and expanding invisible airwaves known as spectrum on behalf of the American public.

The deed is done. NTIA has officially rewritten the rules of the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program, essentially forcing states back to square one on their plans to address the digital divide. As anticipated, the new notice of funding opportunity nixed the BEAD preference for end-to-end fiber.

A House budget bill needs to find a big pot of revenue, and it looks like Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr will be handed the job. Under a newly unveiled budget plan, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Rep Brett Guthrie (R-KY) said he wants the FCC to raise $88 billion over the next nine years by auctioning off at least 600 megahertz of spectrum. Rep Guthrie’s plan appeared to hand a major political victory for the big mobile carriers—AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile—that want to perpetuate a licensed spectrum regime.

In 1998, a handful of companies focused on wire replacement for mobile voice and data came together to form the Bluetooth Special Interest Group, an entity that would grow to include tens of thousands of members who would spend the next two and a half decades working to create a better world through connection. Fifteen years before Bluetooth technology began helping to create a healthier, smarter, more productive, and more sustainable world, the Federal Communications Commission approved the use of unlicensed spectrum in the 2.4 GHz band, laying the foundation for 

Time to get the popcorn out while we take a stroll through the latest in the war of the terrestrial wireless industry vs. Elon Musk and his space-based friends. The battle rose to the surface recently when Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr launched a formal inquiry to study new ways of making use of 220 megahertz of spectrum in the upper C-band.

AT&T floated a proposal in fall 2024 to move the Citizens Broadband Radio Services from the middle of the 3 GHz band to the lower part of the band, and it looks like the Department of Defense is on board with that plan, according to New Street Research analysis.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr announced the tentative agenda for the April Open Commission Meeting scheduled for Monday, April 28, 2025: