The Showdown Over Airlines and 5G Is Part of a Much Bigger Problem

Michael Calabrese wrote for Slate Future Tense about how the concerns airlines have expressed about 5G prove that the lack of a national spectrum policy too often leaves federal agencies in a spectrum standoff. Calabrese not only looks back on previous tensions over the spectrum status quo, but also ahead, to what should be done next to avoid similar showdowns in the future.

The larger problem highlighted by the altimeter fiasco is the lack of an adequate national spectrum policy. Just as the world goes wireless—and the airwaves get more and more crowded—the coordination between the FCC and other federal agencies has broken down over the past five years. Unlike the Obama administration, which coordinated spectrum policy from the White House, the Trump administration had an ad hoc spectrum policy that failed to articulate a coherent set of national priorities that would supersede the natural NIMBY reflex of spectrum incumbents.

The FAA fiasco is just the latest in a series of standoffs over the past four years between the FCC and federal agencies defending the spectrum status quo. FCC proceedings to reallocate spectrum and assign frequencies to new uses take years—yet in too many cases, affected federal agencies do not actively engage in FCC rule-makings or contribute engineering data, but instead wait until after a final decision to raise alarms about potential calamity.