April 26, 2023
This past Friday, I joined leaders from across government, industry, and academia to discuss the future of 6G technology at a forum hosted by the National Science Foundation. In my remarks to this audience, I laid out the Commission’s plans to help shape the future of wireless innovation. The Commission’s May open meeting will be headlined by a pair of spectrum policy changes to both pave the way for future wireless technologies and also unlock new wireless services right now. Here’s everything we have lined up for our May open meeting.
- We’re unlocking cutting-edge radar-enabled technologies. State-of-the-art radar technology is fostering a wave of new innovations, but the FCC’s restrictive technical rules for the 60 GHz band have been holding back some of this activity. The Commission will vote on rules to expand the permissible uses for short-range radars in this band, while making sure new operations can coexist with other services already making use of this spectrum. These changes would facilitate advances in everything from augmented reality to drones to healthcare monitoring.
- We’re optimizing a massive swath of spectrum for services from 6G to satellite. In a pair of separate proceedings, the Commission has been studying how best to use more than 1 gigahertz of mid-band spectrum from 12.2 GHz to 13.25 GHz. To resolve these questions, the Commission will vote on an Order that would preserve the 12.2-12.7 GHz band as a home for next-generation satellite broadband operations by rejecting proposals to introduce ubiquitous, high-power mobile operations in the band. At the same time, we propose further investigation of expanded terrestrial fixed use or unlicensed use in this 500 megahertz band. Moving up to the 12.7-13.25 GHz band, we propose repurposing some or all 550 megahertz of this spectrum for new mobile broadband or other expanded use.
- We’re ramping up our all-of-the-above approach to combat robocalls. There is no silver bullet to stop the scourge of illegal robocalls, so the Commission remains committed to taking every practical measure to give consumers meaningful relief. This May, we will vote to extend several call blocking requirements to include voice service providers who are not currently covered by our rules. We are also seeking comment on a variety of other anti-robocall tools and strategies including analytics-based blocking, do-not-originate lists, call labeling, and increased forfeitures for voice providers who fail to comply with the Commission’s rules.
- We will also consider an adjudicatory matter from our Media Bureau.
—Jessica