Congress is poised to vote on the “One Big Beautiful Bill” Act to fund the government, including a portion drafted by Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) that would both jeopardize the future of Wi-Fi and threaten to kill the growth of private networking. In this blog series, I want to describe how Sen. Cruz’s bill language is a loss for consumers and many industries. In this post, we discuss how the Cruz language will likely cripple the ongoing deployment of gigabit Wi-Fi, such as Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 (and any future upgrades), and what you can do about it.
For the purpose of this article, I am going to assume that you have read the first blog post in this series, “How President Trump’s Budget Bill Jeopardizes Wi-Fi, and How We Got Here,” and cut right to the chase – this post will discuss how the current language in the budget or “reconciliation” bill passed by the U.S. Senate threatens the future of Wi-Fi. The bill passed the U.S. Senate yesterday and has now moved back to the House of Representatives. There’s a small chance that, if the House reopens the bill for other reasons, they might also restore the original House language protecting the 6 GHz band from the spectrum auction block.
As just discussed, budget bills often include spectrum auctions to provide revenue to offset the cost of things such as federal programs or tax cuts. This particular budget bill, therefore, reauthorizes the Federal Communications Commission to conduct spectrum auctions (an authority that expired back in March 2023) for 10 years. This alone adds an estimated $70 billion or so in revenue. But the large wireless carriers – generally through their trade association CTIA, but also through its largest member, AT&T, whose CEO has been busy lobbying on this for months – want specific bands of spectrum designated for auction (what they call a “spectrum pipeline”).
Now, thanks to Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), AT&T and the rest of the wireless industry look like they will get to gobble up half of the 6 GHz band – the spectrum allocated for next-generation Wi-Fi (current home of Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7). If this happens, we will end up with Wi-Fi unable to keep up with your home connection, and ultimately slowing to a crawl (as it did when we only had the original Wi-Fi bands available).
Why would anyone want to mess with the future of Wi-Fi, especially as Sen. Cruz’s language actually makes less money than the House version that protected Wi-Fi? And how does the Cruz language put Wi-Fi at risk without once actually calling out the 6 GHz band by name? I explain below.
Where Can New Spectrum for Auction Come From?
Usually, a spectrum pipeline means finding more federal spectrum to auction, typically from the military. But in recent years, as federal spectrum has started to run out and the military fights harder to keep what they still have, wireless carriers have targeted spectrum held by non-federal users (other than themselves, of course). But with the growth of wireless technology, a lot of other people want to use spectrum – which means hanging on to what they have. This includes satellite providers (like SpaceX, which can now offer competing broadband services), cable operators (trying to offer competing wireless services and better Wi-Fi to their broadband subscribers), wireless internet service providers, or WISPs (which generally serve rural areas larger carriers don’t want to serve), Tribal Nations (who can finally serve themselves by getting access to spectrum), and, of course, anyone who relies on unlicensed spectrum for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth (basically, everybody).
In particular, wireless carriers want “midband” spectrum (defined in the current budget bill as between 1.3 GHz and 10.5 GHz). This band has the best physical properties (what folks call “propagation characteristics”) for fixed and mobile data. (Don’t worry about the physics of why.) But because these frequencies have the best propagation characteristics for data, and pretty much every use of spectrum these days is for data, everyone else wants to keep ahold of their spectrum (and, ideally, get even more).
The FCC has the power to take back spectrum allocated for other uses and auction these off to wireless carriers – and has done so before. In fact, the FCC has an open proceeding to consider how to reclaim some or all of the remaining 200 MHz of “C-Band” between 3.98 GHz and 4.2 GHz from existing satellite users and auction the reclaimed frequencies to wireless carriers. Congress can therefore order the FCC to use this power and look for federal spectrum and non-federal spectrum to reclaim and auction. While the original House version left it to the FCC’s discretion whether to find federal, non-federal, or a mix of the two – Sen. Ted Cruz’s language requires the FCC to find at least 500 MHz of federal spectrum and 300 MHz of non-federal spectrum.
How Does This Impact Wi-Fi?
Nearly all Wi-Fi spectrum sits in the “covered band” of 1.3 GHz to 10.5 GHz. For example, the highest power Wi-Fi (and Bluetooth) sit in the 2.4 GHz band. Another important band used for Wi-Fi is the Unlicensed National Information Infrastructure Band (U-NII), which covers most of 5 GHz. These bands are likely safe because they are so very crowded. Additionally, the millions of devices out there don’t have any kind of kill switch that would make it easy for the FCC to eliminate these many millions of users.
But one Wi-Fi band is both relatively new with rules designed for Wi-Fi so we don’t have millions of baby monitors, garage door openers, and other wireless devices that rely on unlicensed spectrum to disconnect in order to gut it: the 6 GHz band, which the FCC opened in 2020 and is seeing deployment of Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7. This band, which actually runs from 5.195 GHz to 7.125 GHz, opened up much needed space both to accommodate the ongoing explosion of Wi-Fi devices and the need to accommodate gigabit Wi-Fi. As Public Knowledge and other supporters explained, gigabit broadband over Wi-Fi requires much bigger channels than the traditional Wi-Fi bands can support. You can see the technical details here. To regularly support over 1 gigabit over Wi-Fi in your home using Wi-Fi 6E, you need channels about eight times as large as older, traditional Wi-Fi (20 Mhz versus 160 MHz). The over 10 gigabit Wi-Fi that Wi-Fi 7 supports requires more than double the channel size of Wi-Fi 6E (a 320 MHz channel).
Even setting aside the bigger channel size, Wi-Fi needs more capacity because we have so many more devices using it. Wi-Fi does a pretty good job sharing spectrum, but even Wi-Fi has limits. On top of that, there are lots of devices that use unlicensed spectrum that don’t play well with others. This makes the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz band increasingly harder to use for Wi-Fi, which translates to more congestion and dropped connections. Even if you have fiber to the home, it effectively slows to a crawl if you don’t have Wi-Fi capacity to support all the devices you have streaming and talking to each other. But despite this crowding, we keep building more and more devices that only work wirelessly, putting even more strain on Wi-Fi.
Hence the decision of the FCC in 2020 to allocate 1200 MHz of spectrum for Wi-Fi. Mind you, the major wireless companies did not want to see this happen. When the FCC ran the rulemaking to open the 6 GHz band for unlicensed use about five years ago, the CTIA came in with a last-minute proposal to take half the 6 GHz band for auction. We managed to hold them off then. But now, thanks to Senator Ted Cruz and intense lobbying by AT&T CEO John Stankey, Big Wireless may well get its wish – at your Wi-Fi’s expense.
How Does This Work in the Budget Bill?
The House version required the FCC to auction 600 MHz in the “covered band,” that sweet midband spectrum between 1.3 GHz and 10.5 GHz. The language protected two specific bands: the “lower 3 GHz” (3.15 GHz-3.45 GHz), which the military have made clear they absolutely positively want to keep, and the 6 GHz band. Protecting the 6 GHz band protected the future of Wi-Fi. From the perspective of Public Knowledge, the House language still puts good things at risk (notably the Citizens Broadband Radio Service, or CBRS, band). But other than protecting the 6 GHz and the lower 3 GHz bands, the House language left it up to the FCC and the executive branch to work out where to find the spectrum to auction.
Sen. Cruz dramatically changed that language. The Cruz language requires the FCC to find 300 MHz of non-federal spectrum to auction. At least 100 MHz of that must come from the C-Band currently being considered for auction. That leaves 200 MHz of non-federal spectrum the FCC must find to auction. Additionally, Sen. Cruz stripped out the language protecting 6 GHz spectrum from auction. So not only does the FCC have to find non-federal spectrum to auction, the Cruz language explicitly invites the FCC to take some (or all) of that 200 MHz (and however much else the FCC chooses to auction) from someone else. Even if the FCC reclaims other spectrum bands, it will be hard to meet the target without taking at least some of the 6 GHz spectrum back.
But Why Go After Wi-Fi?
When the FCC reclaims spectrum from folks with licenses, the agency has to provide the existing licensed incumbents with enough spectrum to keep doing whatever they are doing (this is because it is a license modification under 47 U.S.C. § 316 and not a license cancellation under 47 USC § 312, which is a lot harder for the FCC to do). But the FCC doesn’t have to make up for taking back any unlicensed spectrum. If you are using it, too bad. Unlicensed spectrum users don’t have licenses, and therefore aren’t protected by statute. This makes unlicensed spectrum a relatively easy target.
While we have had decades to fill up the 2.4 GHz band and the 5 GHz band, the FCC only opened the 6 GHz band relatively recently. Even though broadband providers have been widely deploying Wi-Fi 6E, and some have begun deploying Wi-Fi 7, there are fewer devices in the band. This makes it easier to take back the spectrum from consumers. And whereas everyone would notice if their regular Wi-Fi stopped working because the FCC auctioned it away, the major impact of auctioning the 6 GHz band lies in the future.
More importantly, perhaps, the wireless industry generally and AT&T specifically want it. Even if, according to this study, auctioning half the 6 GHz would be a major loss to the economy as a whole, the fact that Big Wireless wants it is reason enough for some in Washington to take it away from the rest of us.
Why Do You Keep Saying up to Half of the 6 GHz Band?
True, the language would only require the FCC to auction off 200 MHz. What we call the 6 GHz band runs from 5.925-7.125 GHz, for a total of 1200 MHz available. (You can find a summary of the rules here.) In theory, the FCC could simply lop off 200 MHz and leave 1000 MHz. Still bad, but not crippling, as it would leave space for the larger channels needed for gigabit Wi-Fi.
But the CTIA has made it abundantly clear that it wants much more than the 200 MHz required by the Cruz language. Back in 2020, when the FCC authorized 6 GHz for unlicensed access, the CTIA pushed to take half the 6 GHz band to auction off for exclusive licenses. As the CTIA quotes in this Ars Technica article on the Cruz language show, the CTIA still wants the upper half of the entire band. Once the FCC starts working on the auction required by the Cruz language, we can expect the CTIA to push its proposal to take half the band again.
What Happens Now?
As of this writing, the Senate passed its version of the bill, which contains the Cruz language forcing the FCC to find and auction 200 MHz of non-federal spectrum. It now goes over to the House. The leadership wants to push the Senate version through unchanged so they can send it to President Trump for signing by July 4. But there are a lot of changes and many members of the Republican caucus are reportedly unhappy (although unhappy about different things).
If Republicans are forced to make changes to get votes, this will allow for another chance for the House to restore the original language protecting the 6 GHz band – and your Wi-Fi. You can make your voice heard on this front by contacting your representatives and demanding they spare the 6 GHz band from the auction block. If that fails, we will need to fight at the FCC to protect as much of the 6 GHz band as we can for our wireless future.