Military Radars in Lower 3 GHz Band Critical to Nation's Defense: DOD CIO

“You turn on the news now, and you see U.S. naval vessels operating in the Red Sea,” Sherman said. The radars the Navy uses to guide the missiles needed to intercept Houthi attacks and keep Red Sea shipping lanes open are located in the lower 3 GHz band, he said. “This is what we’re talking about with spectrum,” he said. DOD also operates ground-based and air radars in the band, he said. “We need to be able to protect this country using that spectrum while also balancing with the commercial needs,” Sherman said.

DOD submitted a report to Congress on the lower 3 GHz last year (see 2310030073) and is ready to work with NTIA on further study, as called for in the strategy, Sherman said. “We are full co-leaders on this … because of the dual commercial and military needs of that part of the spectrum,” he said. Sherman stressed the importance of dynamic spectrum sharing (DSS) to future use of the band. “We have to figure DSS out, not only for the lower 3 GHz,” he said. He said DOD is willing to look at clearing part of the band “perhaps for future airborne radars,” which was not part of last year’s study.

Sherman noted that the military uses the lower 3 GHz for training in the U.S. on a daily basis. The band is “too important to not be able to use -- we’ve got to be able to unlock this,” he said. DOD has interests beyond the radars, he noted: “We’re 5G users too.”

DOD deserves credit for doing an “exhaustive study” of the lower 3 GHz band, said NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson. The administration is looking at how to make public the results of the study, he said.

Making spectrum available for commercial use is essential to maintaining U.S. leadership in next-generation technology, said House Commerce Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., who spoke after Sherman. The lower 3 GHz band “stands out from the others” among the five bands targeted for future study, she said.

This is “the second time in two years” that the federal government has studied that band, but this time the work is rightly being led by NTIA, “the expert agency on spectrum,” Rodgers said. “I believe that’s where it should have been from the start,” she said. DOD systems have to be protected, but spectrum also needs to be used efficiently, she said. “There needs to be certainty about what spectrum will be auctioned and when, and in order to do this we need to get on the same page,” Rodgers said.

“We’ve been doing a lot of things the same way for a long time, which has served us well,” but it’s time to “pivot,” said Jennifer Warren, Lockheed Martin vice president-regulatory affairs and public policy. The aerospace and defense industries are working on advanced radar and other technologies, she said. The strategy recognizes that innovation doesn’t just occur in consumer communications, Warren said. “It’s a much broader ecosystem,” she said. Minimizing disruption to national security systems “is equally important to reestablishing [U.S.] wireless leadership,” she said.

The importance of spectrum to national security, and the need for improved coordination, were big themes of the symposium Thursday.

Spectrum is critical to national security, said Don Graves, Commerce Department deputy secretary. “The U.S. is engaged in a high-stakes, must-win competition,” he said. China has launched a “concerted effort to dominate 5G deployment,” and eventually 6G, he said. U.S. spectrum policy needs to ensure the U.S. and its allies can compete on a level playing field, he said. President Joe Biden “gets this -- it’s something that he believes in deeply,” Graves said.

The U.S. is in a “strategic competition” with China, which is “the only country in the world that has both the intent and the capability to reshape the international order, and increasingly the power to do it,” said Anne Neuberger, deputy national security adviser-cyber and emerging technology. The U.S.’ advanced networks will decide “whether we stay ahead in this competition,” which makes spectrum policy a priority, she said.

Spectrum is “congested and contested” and there are no “easy bands” without current users, Neuberger said. “The U.S. government, as the biggest user of spectrum, has to lead in solving this issue,” she said.

“This is an exciting time for spectrum policy” and the discussions at the forum will give NTIA the “vital feedback” it needs as it develops an implementation plan, Davidson said. “It’s now all about implementation,” he said. A lot of Americans don’t understand the important but “unseen role” spectrum plays in our daily lives, he said.

At last month’s CES, the big theme was the proliferation of AI, Davidson said. “We just demand a lot more from all the devices in our lives,” he said. “We demand that they are intelligent” and “make use of data” and that requires connectivity and spectrum, he said. The U.S. can meet growing demands for spectrum only through “a coherent, long-term strategy,” that’s built on data and science, he said. “The low-hanging fruit is gone,” he said. The strategy is “just the start of the work ahead,” he said.

Symposium Notebook

“We are stronger when we work together,” said FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, former NTIA deputy administrator: “NTIA plays a critical role in advising the executive branch, managing spectrum for federal use and bringing experts together to collaborate.” The FCC also plays a critical role by administering nonfederal use and regulating users, she said. The State Department “leads efforts to ensure that U.S. needs are advanced on the global stage,” she said. Identifying bands for study and potential repurposing is just the beginning and the process needs to “move with alacrity,” Gomez said. She stressed the importance of NTIA leading the studies of the bands that have been identified. “NTIA does not have a parochial interest in any specific band and is well positioned to be a trusted broker and manager of federal spectrum interests,” she said. “We must recognize that there are some parts of the analysis that cannot be shared publicly” which underscores the importance of having an independent, trusted agency leading the studies, she said.

The strategy's spectrum pipeline portions are ambitious, but “time is not on our side, and we need to move swiftly,” said Jonathan Campbell, aide to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. Campbell said the FCC’s 70/80/90 GHz order, approved last week (see 2401290032), required work with DOD and NTIA and showed how the FCC can move forward on spectrum in complement with the national strategy. Campbell said FCC work on the lower 3 GHz and 7/8 GHz bands, top targets for carriers, will require “an open mind” with a focus on a “wide variety of solutions.” The strategy lists a set of bands “that has really covered the gamut of wireless use both for federal and nonfederal,” he said. He noted that many important federal systems are in both bands. The FCC is “very mindful” it doesn’t have spectrum auction authority “and that’s somewhat limiting in our ability to do spectrum planning and do the prep work,” he said.

The strategy “does a very good job of directing people [on] what they should be working on over the next couple of years,” Umair Javed, CTIA senior vice president-spectrum, said during a panel discussion of the strategy’s spectrum pipeline proposals. We have to look at “where we are as a country,” he said. The U.S. is leading the world in making spectrum available for unlicensed and shared use, he said: “Meanwhile, we’ve continued to trail the world on spectrum for full-power, wide-area use.” The strategy is important in “setting the table for the balance that we have to strike” in protecting U.S. national security, while promoting commercial use of spectrum and recognizing increasing demand for spectrum, said James Assey, NCTA executive vice president. The strategy takes an optimistic approach that “we have new tools in the toolbox” to meet growing commercial demand, he said. Assey said it accomplishes little to draw comparisons on the amount of spectrum available for unlicensed versus licensed use. “The real issue is we have problems -- we need to have a process by which we can solve them,” he said.