GOP Budget Bill Includes Massive Spectrum Handout To Large Wireless Carriers, Hurting WiFi Speeds
from the handouts-everywhere dept
From the massive handout to already-wealthy Americans to the likely fatal cuts to Medicaid, there’s plenty to be disgusted by in the GOP Budget bill approved by Congress today.
But there’s also a lot of little gifts in there to corporations that will likely fly under the radar, including a massive new handout of valuable federal wireless spectrum holdings to wireless giants like AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile. It’s just the wireless industry’s latest reward for being utterly feckless, sniveling boot lickers in the face of historic authoritarian corruption.
Senator Ted Cruz recently killed a program to provide free Wi-Fi to poor, rural school kids because the plan upset large carriers like AT&T. That was followed up by efforts to pull billions in federal funding from states that attempt any sort of AI oversight. Cruz’s latest telecom industry-friendly effort involves a massive handout of valuable federal spectrum to wireless giants like AT&T.
Cruz’s plan could take frequencies away from Wi-Fi and other, more publicly beneficial wireless efforts, and reallocate them for the exclusive use of wireless carriers:
“The Cruz plan could take 200 MHz or more away from the 1,200 MHz currently allocated to Wi-Fi between 5.925 and 7.125 GHz. It could also take spectrum from the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS), which goes from 3.55 to 3.7 GHz.”
That means potentially slower Wi-Fi standards overall. The Wi-Fi 6E standard added support for 6 GHz spectrum, and the in-development Wi-Fi 7 is supposed to take full advantage of the band. Neither will wind up being as useful, fast, and robust if Congress just dumps a massive trove of that spectrum into the lap of AT&T.
The move would likely be particularly harmful for efforts to provide major connectivity at places where a lot of people gather, including schools and libraries. The move also has the potential to harm Internet of Things (IOT) development, given 6GHz’s particular benefits for indoor wireless use.
It’s ironic (?) because Trump’s first term FCC boss Ajit Pai was key in allocating the 6 GHz band to Wi-Fi in the first place back in 2020. Now that he’s shifted over to being the top lobbyist for the wireless industry, he’s playing a starring role in ensuring this public resource is handed over to major carriers.
Before Pai was a lobbyist, his FCC argued that “making the whole band available for Wi-Fi “promotes more efficient and productive use of the spectrum,” while “repurposing large portions of the 6 GHz band for new licensed services would diminish the benefits of such use to the American public.”
Funny how a new job as a lobbyist changed his outlook. New Trump FCC boss Brendan Carr is also busy trying to transfer a massive swath of valuable spectrum from Dish Network (which the first Trump FCC created as a distracted from industry consolidation) to Elon Musk’s Starlink Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite broadband network.
While wireless industry lobbyists insist the industry needs more spectrum, privately, many carriers like AT&T are telling investors they don’t really need it. They’re just pushing for a major chunk of 6 GHz spectrum because they can, and thanks to Trump 2.0, we’ve entered the golden age of corruption where the public interest is the very last thing on anybody’s mind.
Filed Under: 6ghz, broadband, corruption, cronyism, fcc, lobbying, revolving door, spectrum, telecom, wireless
Comments on “GOP Budget Bill Includes Massive Spectrum Handout To Large Wireless Carriers, Hurting WiFi Speeds”
Keeping people ignorant is how fascists rise to power and stay there. It’s as much a part of the plan as making the rich richer. (See also the gutting and withholding of education funding).
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Nay! Conservatives love funding education! They believe everyone deserves the freedom to be forced to be educated about all of the wonderful high-cost options available from your local transnational corporate vendor. Who needs to understand math when you can buy one get one “free” at three times the cost?!? Science is just liberal propaganda. Don’t trust anyone who doesn’t want to smother your face in the finest rubber boot heel! Act now and you too can utterly submit your will to your corporate betters!
Vote them all out.
Vote them all out, and then keep voting the out for the next 50 years and shut the GOP out of power forever. even if the Democrats fuck up, they will never do half as much damage as the republicans, so the way to fix it if a Democrat slips is to primary them, NEVER Is it to replace them with a Republican. EVER.
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If you voted dem, and when that candidate ‘slips’, you voted GOP? particularly post 2010? that slip wasn’t that the dem went to far right. Its the dem going to far left. That person is to the right of the centrist party. Those voters are putting up the kind of candidates more likely to caucus with the GOP.
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Seems, on the basis of November 2024, that we can’t even trust the Democrats to competently run an election campaign for a dyed in the wool democrat.
Don’t vote for any of them, it just encourages them!
/s
Re: Totally agree with "Vote them all out"
For context, I’m an independent voter…
Most people’s opinions boil down to two, and only two, things. “Which political party wants it”, and “Is that my party?”. Don’t ever give them the luxury of being “clueless” (aka. ignorant of the facts, their resulting tax numbers, etc.). They’re not. People have made a purposeful choice with their eyes wide open. “We don’t care what happens, as long as our guy won”. That is not going to change until enough of them get “bit” and decide for themselves that party is not the end all to be all. The swing voters who get “bit” will examine their next choice before the next election cycle. “Some” of the more partisan voters will also. Most partisan voters just don’t care regardless. They honestly don’t care if something is against their own self-interest.
Re: Re: Dear Dan.
Foremost, Kamala was a shitty Candidate not even loved by the Democratic base, I speak as a member of that base, This idea that you can have a Progressive prosecutor was a bit of a Joke, to us she was a cop, and we don’t really like cops. Not literally, but she swam in the same circles as the Police if you get me, She sees herself as on the same side as them and did when she was in office, Part of why I fit in with the crowd here at Techdirt, I don’t like cops, and I don’t hang out in their circles.
Anyways, needed to get that out of the way because of the above commentary, not yours. As to yours, If Republicans ever wanted something I too wanted, I’m more than happy to work with them where we agree on things, I’ve been known to cross party lines in various rebellions like the Green Tea movement which was a non partisan rebellion that coopted large portions of the Tea party to fight for Clean energy, forming a Green tea coalition with Progressives from the other side of the aisle.
I’m not so Partisan I refuse to work with them on the few areas of Agreement, and I’m more than happy to give Credit where it’s due when they do something I want or approve of.
Like Hated bush but at least he liked to read.
“We don’t care what happens, as long as our guy won” I care even if mine loses.
“That is not going to change until enough of them get “bit” and decide for themselves that party is not the end all to be all. ”
I’m a registered Democrat but Independent in spirit, I don’t always go along with them
It’s unfortunate that the GOP Rarely offers anything I’m looking for. its enough that when it’s possible to cross party lines, I remember it well enough to even identify the movement from 2016 because it simply doesn’t happen often and that’s not because I’m so partisan, I just RARELY agree with what they’re doing.
The difference to me is the Democrats will sometimes do things I disapprove of, the Republicans will Constantly be doing things I disapprove of.
Or, everyone will set their region to Canada or whatever country does allow those frequencies for Wi-Fi. Sure, it’d be illegal, but does anyone expect the FCC to have an enforcement budget for much longer?
In the 2.4 GHz days, some people would set their country to Japan to use channels 12 through 14, and I never heard of anyone getting in trouble. On 5-6 GHz, it’s apparently possible to avoid “DFS” and some power restrictions by selecting other countries.
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They’ll send GI since there is plenty of it and don’t seem to bother not being pay.
Military for all administration will be the solution.
“The largest army for the greatest administration.”
But don’t worry, there is certainly many old laws that are waiting to be ill-read to enact theses changes.
Slightly skeptical on how much this will "hurt" Wi-fi
Assuming that higher frequencies are more easily blocked by just about everything, I question the ultimate usability of the spectrum for both Wifi and cell phones. Sure, the spectrum shoudn’t have been given to the phone companies, in lieu of wifi use, but I wonder if it will end up being a nothing burger in the end for both. Wireless [home] network situations vary, but having a duel band router in my house hasn’t fundamentally chanhged my life. I doubt a (tri-band??) would either.
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Either that should say “dual-band”, or your router is much more entertaining than mine.
Higher frequencies are more likely to be blocked by walls and such, but that’s not entirely to Wi-Fi’s detriment: it also blocks interference from neighboring networks. People with a lot of signal-blocking walls can use multiple routers connected via ethernet or power lines. The 5-6 GHz range still tends to do reasonably well (though significantly worse than 2.4 GHz) with drywall or non-metal lath over wooden framing, as has been standard for American house construction since 1970 or so. There are some still-rarely-used Wi-Fi bands above 45 GHz that will have a lot more trouble with that (but are gonna be really fast and interference-free if you’re in a room with a well-positioned router).
Cellular networks often want small cells, too, so these frequencies can be useful. In venues such as stadium and conference centers, with densely-packed clients and maybe few walls, short range is preferable. A lot of base stations are required and will a good number of frequencies to avoid interfering with each other.
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Fun fact: His router was actually involved with the musical scoring for the 1971 classic, Duel.
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You are missing some important information. WiFi has a max power output at 0.1 Watts, cellphones usually have a between 0.3 to 3 Watts, cell towers can have up to 200 Watts. Guess what device’s signal will get drowned out if you have bars on your cellphone.
Have you never experienced the infamous brp-brp-brp sound some audio equipment makes when your cellphone is adjacent to it? Now imagine that’s happening to your WiFi instead.
There’s a reason why we call it “cell tower” and “cellphones/cellular phones”, it is referring to the division of an area into cells and each cell contains a cellular base station that serves that specific area. The interesting thing about cells, their covered area is determined by the frequency they use. This is because of something call attenuation which increases with higher frequencies and that leads to a higher signal loss over distances.
This is relevant to the discussion about WiFi because if the signal strength quickly drops with distance you need more cell towers to keep serving a similar sized area that uses a lower frequency which in turn will increase their interference with WiFi.
I remember a discussion when they were opening up spectrum for public use and so many debaters (probably Russian agents) were trying to spin it as a “big tech handout” because it was going to be unlicensed and anyone could use it, especially tech companies trying to sell wifi appliances.
Now that spectrum is being locked up and taken away from us.
Got to wonder if their end game is just to sell off all the public spectrum. I know big companies would love that, but can they sell it to their captured pols?
2 points
wHY IS THIS NO LONGER A CAPITALIST SYSTEM?
Other Stock markets around the world have been doing great, but the USA, seems to Stall and go no where.
We know how its supposed to Work, but we keep Adding money to the pot, and Saving Corps/Banks/Airline from THEIR OWN mistakes insted of letting them FAIL and another corp TAKE that space, Maybe, with a better design. Unless the Congress has fingers in the system(they do) and even if they DO. letting capitalism Run its path, WORKS.
May not bee seen, but wifi has problems. Digital Helps with Ident of What phone is supposed to get the call. But Cellphone freq is about 2,4ghz, Wifi SAME, Blue tooth, SAME, Unregistered format, like you mouse and KB, that dont use BT, SAME… Thats 4, and there are more, Like ALL the devices you have running on BT, printers, modom Router, on and on..
Lets say 3-5 IOT. NOW open your phone and do a BT scan, Count those, do your nrtwork scan. Add all of those. If you have less than, 10-20, BE HAPPY. But those signals over lap. There is a Signal program for Most phones to check BT. and Sometimes you can find one for your Modem/router, that will Scan, and let you SHIFT the signal to someplace less noise.
The Bandwidth/wi-fi is Saturated, esp in Cities. Some towns are getting bad. the REAL REAL problem is Every one of these devices has SOME strange security. Had a Printer, that had to be setup to a the Router, and then It would be Accessible by other devices, BUT you needed the App to do it. God help you in a power failure, and the router forgets all the connections.
Would rather a Wired Network to each device. ITS PRIVATE and Your Router has better Protections… Get those Caning labels. Write it and change/leave off 1letter number. So someone in the house has to ASK.
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I don’t think that’s the reason for the current stock market performance. It’s not that people dislike American companies per se, it’s that they have no faith in the government to not fuck up… everything. With the tariffs and such, companies are cutting the USA out of their supply chains to reduce risk.
It’s not just “we” adding money, in the sense of Americans. A lot of money comes from foreign investors and foreign customers. With Trump at the helm, things are gonna be too volatile, so there’s little prospect for international growth. Even if Trump were gone, if every subsequent election brings the possibility of similar chaos, people are gonna look elsewhere. And “elsewhere” is where the money’s going, hence the stock markets elsewhere doing well.
Re: Re: its not faith
Faith in that the corps will do their best. I have a few stories and I think others also.
A Nation that has the ability to Export 60% of its grains, Go look up the Chicken tax. And Why we pay +25%. Cause the Brits and EU dont like Bleached Chicken.
Power company that were State controled as it was the State and FED, that BUILT THEM, become Private corps.
When we had Bunches of political parties and could KNOW what they stood for Looked at the 2 Big Guys and said, LETS Join them, and we can get money, and work from the inside.
In the last 30-35 years they have Chopped up everything in the Gov. Think about Judges, and Never increasing the number for 50+ years. And why it takes 2-5 years to get into court.
Re: Wired vs. wireless techs
I called around a few years ago, to get an additional CAT6 run down the length of my house. One quote was for $600.00 {nope} and another would only offer to install a mesh network. (“Sorry buddy, but I can read a manual for myself, if I wanted mesh.”) It was really a joke to get someone who wanted to work for a living. Finally a guy I called dropped one, exactly where I wanted it, for about $150.00. All my non-portable media devices use wired.
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If you have access (like via the attic or an unfinished basement/crawlspace ceiling, if you’re willing to crawl around), it’s really not hard to do yourself. My father once got a friend to do it, who literally just jammed a screwdriver into the wall to make a hole, covered it with a plate, and fished the wire up to the attic (and then ran it via the air-return duct to the basement—not actually legal for non-plenum-rated cable). Like 5 minutes of work, plus another 5 to drive over and bring the ladder and tools inside. The general reason people quote high prices is because they don’t consider such small jobs worth it.
That said, ethernet is likely to be less private than wi-fi (normally no encryption, which means a compromised printer or whatever could eavesdrop), and isn’t treated with any more security at the router.
A new band to help neighbor interference?! LOL!
Adjusting the router wireless channel[s] and adjusting your router’s power to cover only what it needs to, would do a lot more to eliminate neighbor interference than another band would, considering the blockage issues. That isn’t a reason for a new band.
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That can be very hard to do exactly, particularly if you need to support thousands of unknown clients with differing sensitivities and power levels, without the benefit of blockage (which may not be present in a large auditorium or office, for example).
You’re not gonna go from good signal to nothing in a meter or two. See, for example, the diagram under “overlapping coverage cells” on this channel planning page. That uses 3 channels, but would be better with 4 (as can be done in some countries). The next diagram goes 3-dimensional and makes use of more channels.
But new wi-fi versions tend to make the channels wider; we don’t even have 3 channels around 2.4 GHz if they’re wide channels. At 5 GHz, there are only 3—assuming an indoor setup with no radar interference. The 6 GHz band has 3 more, which don’t need the radar checks (DFS) but still have various restrictions, with some portions being low-power-indoor only.
More bands with fewer restrictions would make this easier. Kind of; there are probably old clients around that won’t be on the right frequency for the closest router, so will need higher power to talk to a farther one.
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Nah, what we really need is AI-driven MIMO and frequency, and power adjustments, and tilt. So wireless routers are as smart as washing machines. And blockchain because reasons.
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There are some management systems that try to do frequency selection and power control automatically. And MIMO sounds cool. But a shitty old wi-fi client “screaming” its packets omnidirectionally will still throw a wrench into all this.
It’s probably worth investigating whether cellular providers actually need as much spectrum as they have, or whether they should make use of “open” bands such as wi-fi’s. We probably want some private spectrum to keep 9-1-1 calls reliable, for example—remember a call takes like 100 kbit/s—but the gigabits per second of cat videos could use a less reliable channel. Especially if automatic channel assignment became commonplace.
The fountain father’s would be so disappoint.
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The fountain fathers make a damn good phosphate, with or without apostophes and extra syrup.
Are you fucking serious? lol