The debate over America’s wireless spectrum is, at its core, a debate about the future of innovation. How we manage this finite resource will determine whether the United States maintains its technological leadership, or cedes it to competitors watching our every policy move. The good news is that we already have a model that works. The bad news is that some in Washington are trying to dismantle it.
For most of wireless history, the United States relied on a “clear and auction” approach: federal agencies vacated spectrum bands, taxpayers footed enormous relocation bills, and commercial carriers bought exclusive licenses. That model served its purpose. But in a world where spectrum is increasingly congested, clearing costs can run into the billions and take decades, and auction revenue sometimes fails to cover relocation expenses, the old playbook is getting tattered.
Spectrum sharing seemed a better path forward. The Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) has proven it.
CBRS operates in the 3.5 GHz band using a three-tier architecture to share the same radio waves. The first tier protects incumbent federal users — the Navy and satellite operators — who always retain priority. The second tier consists of Priority Access Licenses, or PALs, purchased at FCC auction by businesses in education, healthcare, manufacturing, and more. The third tier is General Authorized Access, open to all but carrying no interference protections against higher tiers.
An automated Spectrum Access System manages everything — allocating channels, managing interference in real time, ensuring federal users are always protected. No years-long clearing process. No billions in relocation costs. No spectrum sitting idle. Just smart, efficient sharing.
The results are obvious. More than 1,000 operators have deployed over 430,000 base stations in just five years. providers are connecting communities. Hospitals are running secure private networks. Factories are automating production lines. The private 5G supply chain built on CBRS is largely U.S.-based in the software and chipset layers. From Qualcomm and Intel on chips, to Celona, JMA Wireless, and HPE on radio and network equipment, to Federated Wireless and Google managing spectrum access, US companies are prominent. The United States, thanks in large part to CBRS, is the global leader in private cellular deployments. That is a national strategic asset.
What makes coexistence possible is the band’s power limits. Low power constrains each deployment’s geographic reach, allowing more users to share the band without interference. Raise those limits, and the interference footprint of each device expands dramatically — crowding out neighbors, eliminating channels, and collapsing the sharing model that makes CBRS valuable.
Independent analysis from Valo Analytica is stark: converting less than 2% of base stations to high power could eliminate more than 65,000 channels. A single high-power device could preempt shared use across thousands of square kilometers. These are not marginal inconveniences — they are catastrophic disruptions to the airports, manufacturers, rural providers, schools, and hospitals that have built real operations on CBRS.
Those who believe in property rights, market competition, and limited government should be alarmed. The Priority Access Licenses in CBRS were purchased through a lawful auction. Retroactively degrading those rights to benefit incumbent carriers is not deregulation — it is regulatory favoritism. The precedent it sets, that spectrum rights can be materially altered years after an auction closes, will poison every future auction for decades. It would show that the U.S. cannot keep its word.
The right spectrum policy is not to fight over a fixed pie but to do what America does best — grow it. Open more federally held spectrum for sharing, replicate the CBRS model in other bands, and invest in coexistence technologies that make sharing efficient. CBRS is the proof that sharing is working. It is leading the world.
Protecting CBRS’s power framework is not just about one band. It is about signaling to investors, innovators, and international competitors that America is serious about smart spectrum policy — and will not sacrifice a working model on the altar of lobbying. Let’s not snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
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