The results are in: cable internet has gotten cheaper thanks to 5G. In a new study published this week, Pepperdine University Economics and Public Policy professor James Prieger estimated that between 2023 and 2025, competition from wireless home internet service drove cable internet prices down by an average of $11 per month. That’s great news and demonstrates clearly how spectrum—the invisible medium of wireless communication—can benefit consumers when put to commercial use.
Congress has a key role to play in ensuring the competition keeps rolling.
Wireless home internet didn’t used to be a viable option. In 2018, Congress directed the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to pave the way for 5G by auctioning off more spectrum to the private sector. With more bandwidth available, innovators improved wireless home internet enough to rival cable speeds.
The result: wireless is driving down prices. Wireless became a viable enough competitor to disrupt the home internet marketplace. Thanks to this so-called convergence, several communications technologies competing for the same consumers, home internet has reliably gotten cheaper in the face of widespread inflation.
But without more spectrum, there’s a limit to what wireless service providers can do. The federal government occupies 61 percent of the most coveted frequency ranges, even though many federal users hold onto more than they need for their operations. Many could downsize, relocate to other bands, or even switch to fiber optic networks, abandoning the need for spectrum entirely.
If this excess could be made available for commercial use, it could drive further innovation and competition. That’s why Congress passed legislation last year tasking the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) with identifying, vacating, and handing over a hefty chunk of government-held spectrum for auction.
That is easier said than done. NTIA identified its first band, but no federally occupied spectrum has been auctioned. To be clear, it has not missed any deadlines; this just takes a long time.
The big hold-up: procedural complexity. Moving government entities to different spectrum bands requires time, money, often new equipment, and risks disrupting mission-critical operations. Even the most cooperative federal user would be wary of incurring such costs. That makes identifying and freeing up spectrum difficult—but not impossible.
Recent analysis illustrates the problem well when, in 2017, communications company Ligado obtained licenses for spectrum close to bands held by the Department of Defense. Studies found no evidence of harmful interference, but federal agencies kept the issue open until 2022. Sadly, drawn-out studies are frequently tools to delay relocating federal incumbents to different bands. As long as agencies can leverage endless studies, NTIA will struggle to meet its spectrum goals.
Despite that complexity, the NTIA needs to press forward. Auctioning the bands it already found will be a good first step, but fixing the procedure will yield faster results.
The solution: faster deadlines and more accountability. Congress should impose and enforce deadlines for spectrum-occupying agencies the NTIA depends on for timely studies. That way, none needlessly delay moving spectrum into innovators’ hands.
A less obvious—but critical—priority is updating the rules governing the Spectrum Relocation Fund (SRF), which reimburses displaced agencies for their moving costs. As Senator John Hickenlooper (D-Colorado) pointed out last year, modern equivalents are far more capable than still-used legacy equipment, but SRF will not reimburse system upgrades without a strict approval process. Without reimbursement, agencies must eat the cost of relocation, and a safeguard for tax money becomes an effective deterrent against modernization. Streamline the process, and federal spectrum holders will have a much easier time getting out of the way.
Another idea floated on Capitol Hill is to create a market for government-held spectrum. This can work by two mechanisms: having agencies pay for the spectrum they use and reimbursing them for spectrum they give up. Spectrum held by federal agencies could aid in the next technological breakthroughs, but the opportunity cost of advances that never happen is hard to measure. If agencies had to internalize some of that cost, and they could capture some of the gains of their holdings being put to better use, they could decide not to hold on to so much. Existing fees that agencies pay to the NTIA for the authority to use their spectrum bands could be reworked to reflect more of the opportunity cost they stymie. Policymakers can negotiate what that rate schedule would look like.
Where commercial spectrum so clearly benefits consumers, Congress is right to push more of it into the private sector. But it should also take the time to streamline the procedure it takes to identify, vacate, and hand over government-occupied spectrum for auction. To do otherwise is like trying to drive a car with the e-brake on.
Nate Karren is a Policy Analyst with the American Consumer Institute, a nonprofit education and research organization. Follow Nate on X @NateKarrenOnX