FCC Should Not Interfere With Broadband Deployment in 12 GHz Band

Dear Chairman Pai:

On behalf of the National Taxpayers Union (NTU), the nation’s oldest taxpayer advocacy organization, I write to you concerning the MVDDS 5G Coalition’s (“Coalition”) April 2016 Petition for Rulemaking to Permit MVDDS Use of the 12.2-12.7 GHz Band for Two-Way Mobile Broadband Service. American taxpayers and consumers have a significant stake in the future of both 5G and broadband deployment across the nation, and for that reason NTU is compelled to weigh in on this proposed utilization of the 12.2-12.7 GHz band. A variety of industry stakeholders have recently offered their own comments on the matter, and their proposals may represent difficult tradeoffs for the Commission.

NTU has largely supported the Commission’s recent efforts to unleash private-sector 5G and broadband deployment,^[1] and we continue to believe that light government involvement is the best path forward for America’s long-term global economic competitiveness.^[2] Unfortunately, the Coalition’s Petition for Rulemaking would have the Commission significantly interfere with ongoing broadband deployment efforts from non-geostationary satellite orbit (NGSO) operators. We recently joined a coalition letter organized by Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) that made a similar point:

While the petitioners’ goal is providing more options and new entrants for 5G, that goal comes at a cost of severe interference to the latest generation of satellite broadband networks that are a year out or less from providing full service.^[3]

The Commission also recognizes the importance of these ongoing efforts by NGSO operators. In March 2018, upon the approval of SpaceX’s proposal to deploy thousands of satellites for broadband using frequencies in the Ku (11/14 GHz) band, the Commission wrote:

With this action, the Commission takes another step to increase high-speed broadband availability and competition in the United States. This is the first approval of a U.S.-licensed satellite constellation to provide broadband services using a new generation of low-Earth orbit satellite technologies.^[4]

Given the vast potential of this technology to close the digital divide, it would be unwise to take actions that threaten the widespread deployment of broadband via low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites, especially when NGSO operators are mere months away from deploying even more satellites under this system.^[5] Indeed, SpaceX has confirmed that “any proposal that would undermine current and future satellite use of the 12 GHz Band would place at risk the achievements in this band and impede the deployment of critical broadband services for consumers, including in the most rural and remote areas of the country.”^[6]

While NTU recognizes the tremendous benefits that may flow from robust private-sector 5G deployment around the nation, the 12.2-12.7 GHz band has not even been a major part of the conversation on 5G. As the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service (CRS) noted in a recently updated background paper on 5G:

5G technologies plan to use three segments of the electromagnetic spectrum (“the spectrum”): high band (also called millimeter wave, or MMW), which operates between around 24 and 300 GHz; mid band, which operates between 1 GHz and 6 GHz; and low band, which operates below 1 GHz.^[7]

And as the nonpartisan think tank TechFreedom noted in its October 2020 filing with the Commission:

When FCC Chairman Pai talks about closing the Digital Divide, he often references his travels into rural America...