CTIA Chief: US Must 'Keep All Pathways Open' to Make Spectrum Available for Auction

The U.S. fell behind China on 5G availability, and that’s “no accident,” Pai said at the start of the annual conference, which CTIA co-hosts with GSMA. Carriers have continued to invest “massive amounts of capital, but as a nation we fell behind because we did not act with urgency.” The reconciliation law, approved in July (see 2507070045), “is a clear repudiation of policy inertia that we have seen in recent years,” he said. “We need to execute.”

Congress “calling dibs on 800 MHz of spectrum is nice, but it’s making a reservation,” Pai said. “Holding a reservation requires us to clear spectrum, to auction and do this in a timely way.” To move forward, “we need to keep all pathways open,” he argued. “We can’t win the game if we keep taking bands off the table. … We need to keep in play every band that is not foreclosed by Congress in order to maximize our odds.”

As the former head of the FCC, Pai said he understands the challenge facing current Chairman Brendan Carr. He said that when he led the agency, “we pursued an aggressive spectrum agenda, one that required us to devote substantial resources to set and hold” auctions. Carr “has the same mindset but in spades.” Officials in the White House, Commerce Department and DOD are already engaged on spectrum issues, Pai noted. He also called on the FCC to “modernize” rules for wireless deployments. “We need reform. … We need to make it easier to build infrastructure.”

CTIA Chairman and Verizon Business CEO Kyle Malady highlighted the disparity between the rules for wireless deployments at the federal level and in the states. If the two levels of government aren’t aligned, “we’re just going to be caught up in a quagmire, and we will not innovate, and we will not get the right spectrum out there,” he said. No one thinks “it’s going to be easier to build here than it would be in China — that’s just the way the system is set up.”

Carriers build their businesses on spectrum availability, and without it, they face capacity constraints, Malady said. When they don't have spectrum, it's like a real estate business “with no land,” he said. “It doesn’t work.” Malady agreed with Pai that “we need to execute.” Compared with China, “we kind of live a little bit hand to mouth as an industry,” he said. “I think we need to have a better plan” for “10, 20, 30 years from now so we’re not just scrambling at the last minute.”

Malady also said AI will play a big role in Verizon’s future. “Power, space and cooling” are “sexy again.” Carriers have fiber and real estate as well, he noted, which they can leverage “to help spur and go faster on the AI front.” Carriers have a role “in making the AI world a little more seamless.” Instead of people talking to people, “you’re going to have bots talking to bots” and “agents talking to agents,” and carriers can facilitate those communications, he said.

In addition, AI is becoming part of smartphones and other devices, both in the chips and applications, Malady said. The manufacturing industry has been “a bright spot” for carriers, with the number of private 5G networks growing. When licensed spectrum is available, chief information officers are more comfortable “putting mission-critical applications” in their factories, he said. AI and mobile phones are “inseparable,” he said. “What other device is out that that is you?”