The regulator’s chairman, Ajit Pai, has announced the plan in a blog post.
Background: The FCC has made significant work in making spectrum available for 5G in recent years. After the recent auctions of millimeter-wave spectrum in the 24GHz and 28GHz band, it has already planned further auctions for 2019 in the 37GHz, 39GHz, and 47GHz bands.
A new look at lower bands: While recent regulations have focused on very high spectrum bands, the FCC is also looking at unused spectrum in lower bands. In a blog post this week, the regulator’s chairman announced he is circulating an order to open up the 2.5GHz band for 5G, which is the single largest band of contiguous spectrum below 3GHz and has been unused for decades, due to old rules which reserved the band to educational TV. It is understood the band is unused across many rural areas, and freeing it up would make available 114MHz of spectrum.
Next steps: The Report and Order on Transforming the 2.5GHz Band is included in the tentative agenda for the FCC’s next open meeting, due to take place on 10 July 2019.
