Spectrum in the Senate's “Big, Beautiful” Bill: The End of the Beginning

What’s New: The Senate has now passed its version of the reconciliation bill, which differs on spectrum issues from the House version. The biggest change is calling for 800MHz to be reallocated, rather than the 600MHz called for by the House.  In this note we analyze the Senate bill and the key points for investors to understand if the House now passes the legislation and sends it on to the President. 

Related NSR notes

Spectrum in the Senate, May 28, 2025

CBO Releases Spectrum Score, May 21, 2025

President makes a push for 600MHz of spectrum to be auctioned, May 20, 2025

Pentagon Floats Spectrum Plan, (Policy) May 1, 2025

New DoD proposal on spectrum for carriers (Financial), May 1, 2025

Meanwhile, Back in Telecom Land, Fissures Among Republicans on Spectrum, USF and Bead, April 14, 2025

The next spectrum auctions: setting the stage, February 24, 2025

Spectrum Supply and Demand, February 21, 2025

Background. Here is the background for understanding the current state of play.

The issue before Congress is not about auction authority per se.

The DoD plan for 640 MHz.  As we discussed early this month, the White House asked the DOD to come up with a plan to enable allocation of at least 600 MHz mid-band spectrum to the exclusive wireless community (LINK).

The House Republican Position.

The Senate Republican Leadership Position: A lot more spectrum than the House.  In 2024 and again in 2025, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz (and Senate Majority Leader Thune) introduced the Spectrum Pipeline Act.

The Senate Version.  The key elements of the just passed Senate version are:

Analysis.  The key points for investors to understand about the impact of the legislation are as follows:

The now-passed Senate version is likely to be the version that is in the final bill.

This is not the beginning of the end of resolving spectrum issues; rather it is the end of the beginning.

None of the Congressional goals are enforceable.

The exclusive wireless industry (including T[8], VZ, TMUS) did better in this round than the industry that favors shared and unlicensed (including CMSCA and CHTR).

While meeting the first goal of 100 MHz in the Upper C Band should not be hard, getting more could be tricky.

Other bands have similarly complicated issues.

Bottom Line: Exclusive wireless accomplished what it wanted to in this round, and cable interests now have the challenge of defending their current interests in the CBRS and 6GHz band, but the real game will be played out over the next several years at the NTIA and the FCC.


[1] Let’s have an honest talk about what is going on.  Almost everyone loves spectrum auctions.  The federal treasury loves spectrum auctions.  The world loves spectrum auctions.  The Nobels love spectrum auctionThe Oscars love spectrum auction.  Even the f*#king Emmys love spectrum auctions.  But there is one group that doesn’t: the Department of Defense.  And it just so happens that there are several critical members of Congress who love spectrum auctions, but they love the DoD more.  (Doesn’t this sound like the most boring rom-com ever?)  We are not sure why a deal that gave the FCC spectrum auction authority for everything other than spectrum currently controlled by the DoD was not proposed and adopted during the Biden Administration, but we provide some clues in the next footnote.

[2] The DoD is very good at Hill politics.  But they were aided in this case by both the FCC Chair and the Biden White House not being very good on the Hill on this specific issue.  We think the current chair and the current White House are much better at Hill politics on spectrum and, as discussed further in the text, we think they will succeed in some of their spectrum ambitions but perhaps not as much as currently advertised.

[3] VZ also has some CBRS licenses.  But we believe that that they would trade off moving those licenses for the opportunity to have more mid-band spectrum and therefore are not as troubled as the cable players are by the prospect of moving.

[4] One spectrum expert, and CBRS supporter, Michael Calabrese, director of New America’s Wireless Future Program, cautioned that moving Navy radars from the current CBRS band doesn’t add 100 MHz for auction “since 70 megahertz has already been auctioned…(and)would pull the rug out from under more than 1,000 CBRS operators that have deployed more than 400,000 base stations.  While they could, in theory, share DOD spectrum lower in the band, that spectrum will now be so congested it’s unclear how or when that could be implemented.”  Another legal question could be whether there is functional equivalency when the international equipment standard may make equipment cheaper and/or better in the current CBRS band than in the future band.  These, of course, are factual questions that could be relevant to the litigation discussed later in the text.

[5] There is an odd inconsistency between the requirement for auctions within six years and the CBO scoring in which most of the revenues are realized in the back end of the ten-year authority.  But we don’t think that has any relevance for investors (see footnote 8 below) so, for now, we will regard it as a MacGuffin.

[6] In Cruz’ press announcement, he said, “For many years now, U.S. government incumbents, particularly bureaucrats at the Pentagon under the direction of Mark Milley, have insisted they are using every single megahertz as efficiently as possible and must maintain absolute control of their vast spectrum holdings.  Look, I am open to compromise on what the aggregate pipeline target number should be, but zero is objectively unreasonable. And no institution should be afforded blind deference—especially not one that can’t even pass an audit and claimed that leaving billions in tanks, helicopters, and weapons in Afghanistan was more efficient than bringing them home. But don’t just take it from me. Military analysts with firsthand experience agree that we are falling behind, both in terms of its effective usage, and in the development of intellectual property and wireless capabilities. Further, the Pentagon is not the only user of the airwaves globally. Many of the bands used by DoD are used commercially in countries like Taiwan, Japan, and Korea. If DoD cannot operate alongside wireless carriers using these bands domestically, how can we expect it to prevail in a Pacific conflict? There are also significant opportunity costs for our national defense in delaying spectrum auctions. A pipeline would be lucrative, raising $100 billion or more for rebuilding our military, funding border security, and financing Coast Guard polar icebreakers. That’s a valuable offset for reconciliation.”

[7] There is a specific provision that allows the President to “modify or withdraw any frequency proposed for reallocation under this section not later than 60 days before the commencement of a system of competitive bidding scheduled by the Commission with respect to that frequency, if the President determines that such modification or withdrawal is necessary to protect the national security of the United States.”  That is, putting aside all other forms of Executive Power, the President in 2029 can adjust any decision that calls for auction in 2029 or beyond.

[8] T was able to prevail even though the President apparently does not know who the CEO of T is, as Trump yesterday posted on Truth Social after a problem on a mass conference call on T’s network that “AT&T obviously does not know what it is doing…. If the Boss of AT&T, whoever that may be, could get involved — It would be good.” An alternative theory is that even if Trump knows who John Stankey is, Trump wants to set the stage for arguing that Trump Mobile is a better product than T.

[9] Of course, all of this can change if Musk follows through on his threat to fund opponents of the reconciliation act but at this point, particularly with the Fourth of July holiday within earshot, we have no desire to engage in speculation about how that roller-coaster ride ends.

[10] The practice of Senators telling an unhappy constituency that they will be protected down the road is a common practice.  Blair recalls that during the implementation of the 1996 Act, that some stakeholders would tell him that a certain important Senator promised them the FCC would interpret the law one way while the opposing stakeholders would tell him that the same Senator promised that the FCC would interpret the law the opposite way.  We have no way to know whether those offering assurances mean to abide by their words but the key investor point is that, just as with the 1996 Act, a new game begins when the bill turns over the authority to the FCC (and in this case, NTIA).