Senate Republicans ‘very close’ to deal to protect key DoD spectrum in reconciliation language

WASHINGTON — After months of intra-party wrangling, Senate Republicans are “very close” to a deal in their version of the budget reconciliation package that prohibits the auctioning to commercial telecommunications firms of a key band of the electromagnetic spectrum currently reserved for use by military air and missile defense radars.

The draft language in the process of being finalized also walls off a portion of spectrum used by the Defense Department and Intelligence Community for encrypted satellite communications from future auction by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which governs spectrum usage by commercial companies.

“I appreciate that the two main national security bands have been excluded from spectrum auction specifically, and we are working to tighten up the language a bit to guarantee those national security bands will remain protected,” Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., told Breaking Defense on Thursday. “I think we’re very close to finalizing the language and thus fulfilling our agreement.”

The Senate Republicans’ language likely will remain in the final reconciliation bill, since it echoes that in the House version, and the party has a 53 to 47 majority over Democrats. Reconciliation bills require only a majority vote.

The battle over the auction language was the most recent skirmish in the long-running war broadly between DoD and the 5G and 6G wireless cell phone industry, as well as their respective supporters, over access to spectrum ranging from the much-coveted S-band long reserved for military radar systems, to the C-band traditionally used by military, civil and commercial communications satellites, to the L-band used by the GPS birds.

The spectrum sell-off plan was originally authored by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who chairs the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, to provide more availability to US providers of 5G and 6G wireless communications. It would mandate that the Commerce Department assistant secretary for communications and information, who leads the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), identify 500 MHz of spectrum now assigned for use only by federal agencies, including DoD, to be reallocated for commercial or mixed federal-commercial use. (NTIA regulates federal use of spectrum.)

The initial draft from Cruz’s committee, which oversees regulation of the telecommunications industry, would have put a chunk of S-band spectrum on the block. That chunk included the 3.10-3.45 GHz S-band range, tagged by DoD as the “Goldilocks” zone because it allows all-weather radar operations at needed distances.

It also would have put the 7-8 GHz band used by national security communications satellites, such as the Space Force’s Wideband Global SATCOM constellation, up for sale.

But the draft met strong resistance from a bipartisan group of Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) members concerned about potential interference with DoD systems. After a flurry of on-again, off-again negotiations, the baseline deal among Republicans was reached last week.

Along with Rounds, key Republican SASC members such as Chairman Roger Wicker of Mississippi, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, and Deb Fischer of Nebraska “were instrumental in pushing to protect the 3.10-3.45 GHz and 7.4-8.4 GHz bands; however, there are additional language tweaks that must happen for the bands to be fully protected,” a congressional source told Breaking Defense on Thursday.

At least one prominent Democratic senator, the ranking Commerce Committee member Sen. Marie Cantwell, D-Wash., continues to have serious concerns about the spectrum provision, and has decried the lack of Democratic input to its negotiation.

“We, too, were elected by our constituents to represent the public interest, and we should be afforded the opportunity to properly serve them by considering this legislation before it is brought to the Senate floor,” she wrote in a letter yesterday to Cruz. All committee Democrats signed except for Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania.

“I wish we were involved in the negotiations,” Cantwell told the Center for Strategic and International Studies yesterday. “I think it’s a very dangerous proposal, because it really doesn’t look at all the details about the incumbent users, in this case, a lot of military applications.”

In particular, Cantwell — who’s state is home to troubled aircraft behemoth Boeing Corp. — asserted that as currently drafted the Senate auction plan would put in peril both civil and military aviation. The language would mandate the FCC to auction off 100 MHz of spectrum between 3.98 and 4.2 GHz within the first two years of the bill’s enactment. That band abuts the 4.2-4.4 GHz range used by radar altimeters on board aircraft to calculate ground distance as planes come in to land.

The plan would result in “every commercial plane having to get a new altimeter, because it has to be sensitive enough to the interference. The planes that we’re flying today do not have altimeters that are sensitive enough,” she said. “Every DoD plane would also have to get a new altimeter calibrated to deal with the interference. Now, if that isn’t enough to stop a bill right there, I don’t know what is.”

An Air Force official declined to comment directly on the altimeter claim but told Breaking Defense, “we have concerns about potential adjacent band interference with USAF aircraft but more testing is required to determine the extent.”

An NTIA spokesperson declined to comment as the legislation is still pending.

Cantwell explained that in the last FCC auction of upper C-band spectrum between 3.5 and 3.7 GHz, which took place in 2020 under the 2015 Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) spectrum sharing legislation, interference required the FAA and FCC to craft a number of technical and operational workarounds. These included mandating new altimeters for commercial airliners and the use of “airplane mode” on cell phones during take off and landing, as well as the establishment of physical distance measures for cell towers from airfields.

As the C-band frequencies covered in the Senate draft reconciliation are even closer to those used by radar altimeters, the laws of physics would dictate that even more interference could be expected. That said, the last five years have seen an enormous amount of technical innovation that arguably could minimize any problems. In addition, the proposal would establish a buffer zone of nearly 100 MHz between 3.98 GHz and 4.2 GHz that proponents believe would help avoid noise spillover.

The FCC put out a notice of intent to open up the upper C band to commercial use in February. Among supporters of the auction (although with different viewpoints on who should get to do what with it) are SpaceX, which wants to use the band for satellite-to-cellular communications, and the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association that represents the big three telecom firms AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile who want to expand 5G and 6G networks.

In a hearing Wednesday on the nomination of the Trump administration pick for FAA chairman, Bryan Bedford, Cruz said Cantwell’s claim that aviation safety would be impacted by the auction is “not true.”

He noted that “the language provides two years for an auction to occur, ample time, especially since the FCC has already begun work on this band. And secondly, the bill requires auctioning less than half of the spectrum of the band, giving the FCC and industry significant flexibility to avoid any adverse impact on aviation.”