- The FCC will vote at its July 22 meeting to hold an auction of 160 megahertz of upper C-band spectrum next year
- FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said the proposed rules would effectively create a “super band” spanning 440 megahertz
- Verizon and AT&T dominated the last C-band auction, but analysts are watching what SpaceX does next
The industry just finished a little AWS-3 auction and now it’s gearing up for a much bigger one: 160 megahertz in the upper C-band next year.
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr said Tuesday that the FCC will vote at its next meeting on July 22 to hold an auction of 160 megahertz of spectrum in the upper C-band. That’s more than the 100 megahertz minimum amount of spectrum that last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill mandated to be auctioned off by July 2027.
In announcing the auction, Carr made it one big political win for himself just before America celebrates its 250th anniversary on July 4.
“America’s wireless leadership is back,” he said in a statement. “We are delivering on time, on budget and with no surprises. This is a really good win for the country.”
The C-band “super band”
The rules that the FCC votes on next month will effectively harmonize wireless operations across the lower and upper C-band to create what Carr called a “super band” that spans 440 megahertz of spectrum between the lower C-band (3.7-3.98 GHz) and now the upper C-band (3.98-4.14 GHz).
Of note is the FCC’s coordination with federal partners, particularly the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which will allow wireless service providers to light up the upper C-band by the end of 2030 – ahead of many expectations.
Recall: The lower C-band auction riled the aviation community, delaying deployments and forcing carriers to shut off C-band signals on towers near airports.
Lessons were learned and the FAA today issued a statement – as part of the FCC’s press release – saying it’s on board with this auction.
“The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is confident that the use of radio signals from the FCC's 5G auction can safely coexist with aviation after years of FAA-led testing and technical analysis,” the FAA said in the statement. “The FCC worked closely with the FAA while developing its auction rule, which contains key safeguards that protect the band of frequencies that aircraft radio altimeters use.”
Those safeguards include limiting the power of the auctioned 5G signals to levels the FAA has determined are safe for aviation; protecting the altimeter band with a buffer band between it and the band of frequencies that will be auctioned; and limiting the height of 5G transmission towers, the agency said.
Later this summer, the FAA plans to issue its own rules to require aircraft altimeter upgrades to ensure altimeters can safely operate with signals from 5G wireless signals that will be auctioned.
Next big FCC auction
The upper C-band auction will be the biggest one since the lower C-band auction that concluded in 2021. That auction brought in more than $80 billion for U.S. coffers, with the biggest spenders being Verizon and AT&T.
The 3.45 GHz auction in 2021 raised about $21.8 billion while the 2.5 GHz auction in 2022 raised only $428 million in proceeds. T-Mobile was the big winner in the 2.5 GHz auction.
In a June 26 report for investors, TD Cowen analysts estimated the upper C-band auction could fetch anywhere from $30 billion to $75 billion, with the wide range dependent on the amount of spectrum allocated, FAA deployment delays and SpaceX’s participation.
Some analysts have speculated that SpaceX’s involvement in the AWS-3 auction was a test run before the “real deal,” being the upper C-band auction, which will include 3,248 new spectrum licenses throughout the contiguous United States.
The AWS-3 auction, which raised more than $3.5 billion, consisted of 200 licenses that were originally auctioned more than 10 years ago but recycled after Dish Network/EchoStar returned them as part of the designated entity (DE) fiasco.