Today, the U.S. Senate voted 51-50 to pass President Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” Act to fund the government, including efforts to auction off public spectrum.
The spectrum component risks worsening home Wi-Fi by calling for the Federal Communications Commission to auction off an additional 300 MHz of non-federal spectrum between 1.3 GHz and 10.5 GHz – a “covered band” that contains virtually all unlicensed spectrum used for Wi-Fi. This spectrum will likely be pulled from the 6 GHz band, which is currently set aside for Wi-Fi 6E, Wi-Fi 7, and future Wi-Fi upgrades. Under this budget bill, the FCC could be forced to sell off as much as half of the currently unlicensed spectrum in the 6 GHz band to meet the higher auction quota. As more and more Americans use Wi-Fi for everything from social media to Zoom calls, this could lead to a slower, busier experience when using a Wi-Fi connection with less spectrum available to use.
Public Knowledge strongly opposes this bill that jeopardizes the future of Wi-Fi and urges the conference committee to pass a clean spectrum reauthorization without this language threatening innovation.
The following can be attributed to Sara Collins, Director of Government Affairs at Public Knowledge:
“This budget bill is an attack on our nation’s Wi-Fi. Spectrum auctions are an incredibly speculative way of raising revenue in the best circumstances; and this provision could so drastically decrease the quality of our Wi-Fi that any budgetary offset it provides would be overshadowed by the damage done to Americans’ ability to access the internet.
“We urge House representatives – who protected the 6 GHz band from auction in the version originally passed by the House – to have the courage to restore those same protections stripped out by Senator Cruz (R-Texas). This will save our nation’s Wi-Fi from the auction block and secure American leadership in gigabit Wi-Fi.”
You may view our recent blog post, “How President Trump’s Budget Bill Jeopardizes Wi-Fi, and How We Got Here,” for more information.
Members of the media may contact Communications Director Shiva Stella with inquiries, interview requests, or to join the Public Knowledge press list at shiva@publicknowledge.org or 405-249-9435.