FCC chairman Ajit Pai got a shout-out across the pond for the FCC's efforts to open up the C-Band spectrum for 5G.
The FCC has opened up 280 MHz for wireless broadband, moving incumbent broadcast, cable and other users to the upper 200 MHz of the 500 MHz band.
Related: Mike Rogers, Man of 5G Action
The praise came from Mike Rogers, former House Intelligence Committee chairman and currently head of 5G Action Now, which was pushing for C-Band spectrum for wireless, who spoke remotely at a virtual British Parliament Defense Subcommittee hearing on 5G security.
“Chairman Pai has done an excellent job to actually open up [C-Band] spectrum and help clear it out, put it up for auction. And I think you’re going to get lots of investment once there is certainty," he said. The auction is scheduled to begin by year's end. He said it has been a circular firing squad for a long time on spectrum clearing, but that is starting to change.
He said the FCC is behind, but once the hounds of American innovation are unleashed, China look out.
Britain has been leaning toward allowing Chinese telecom Huawei tech to remain in its 5G networks. The FCC is currently trying to evict Huawei tech from U.S. nets, something Congress and the Trump Administration is backing, though at times the President has appeared to want to use the issue as a trade bargaining chip with China.
Rogers told Multichannel News two weeks ago, and Parliament this week, that the Trump Administration is now confronting the issue of Huawei tech and is now setting a security standard for 5G network tech that Rogers told the subcommittee Huawei does not come within a hundred miles of.
