Posted on Tuesday, October 7, 2025
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by Outside Contributor
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A great but unheralded feature of the One Big Beautiful Bill passed in July was an authorization for the Federal Communications Commission to raise $88 billion to $100 billion through electronic spectrum auctions.
Selling this additional 600 to 800 megahertz of bandwidth to the private sector will enable the U.S. to expand 5G and even 6G technology, ensuring American dominance in internet, artificial intelligence, and satellite technologies.
President Donald Trump gets this, and earlier this year, he posted on his Truth Social account that he supports freeing up “plenty of SPECTRUM for auction” to assure America’s “status as the Worldwide Leader in WiFi, 5G, and 6G.”
Every penny of the revenues from these spectrum sales will be allocated to reducing the federal deficit/debt.
Sen. Ted Cruz had proposed a spectrum deal twice as large: raising as much as $200 billion and creating a wireless “pipeline” that would provide 5G reception and services to nearly all households and businesses.
Some of the opposition to the spectrum auction comes from the cable industry, which worries that wireless will replace cable hookups. This is true, but that’s because wireless is a superior 21st-century technology.
Phone companies weren’t too happy when cellphones took over the market. We didn’t stop Apple’s quest to put a wireless phone in every customer’s palm.
AT&T believes the spectrum auction plus the immediate expensing for capital purchases in the Trump tax bill will increase wireless and fiber services to “an additional 1 million fiber customer locations annually starting in 2026” to meet “soaring consumer demand.”
What a great way to close the “digital divide” facing lower-income families.
But now our congressional sources are warning of a potential holdup. The Dems have opposed the measure. Most notably, Sen. Maria Cantwell has encouraged Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to go slow on auctions to protect “critical spectrum resources” used for national defense and aviation safety.
I’m all for putting national security first, but the spectrum auction will preserve plenty of spectrum for these critical national defense functions, with the government still controlling about half the bandwidth.
House Democrats have complained that the revenues from this national resource should be used for high-priority national concerns. Again, they are right. But what could be a bigger national concern than the size of our cancerous national debt and $2 trillion borrowing obligations each year?
A bigger worry is that an amendment to the Senate defense authorization bill sponsored by Sen. Deb Fischer would limit electronic spectrum modifications. The Trump administration has rightly protested this language, arguing that this would curtail auctions and undercut the deal agreed to back in July for nearly $100 billion of auctions.
Selling spectrum space to T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T, and other tech companies would likely enhance Americans’ safety. Consider that previous spectrum sales have enabled AT&T to develop and expand FirstNet — a wireless and encrypted network for public safety warnings that helps first responders react to terrorist attacks, hurricanes, tornadoes, or other acts of Mother Nature.
Meanwhile, China is intent on winning the next tech race and has sold off substantially more of its spectrum to private interests than we have.
The national security implications of China winning the race for 6G and other wireless communications technology are a clear and present danger to our national and economic security. This bandwidth in the hands of private sector innovators can be much more valuable to our economy and security than if it remains in the hands of politicians and a federal Defense Department bureaucracy.
There’s an old saying that possession is 90% of the law. The military-industrial complex simply wants to keep this vital asset because they have it. Trump is right: That doesn’t put America first.
Stephen Moore is a former Trump senior economic adviser and the cofounder of Unleash Prosperity, which advocates for education freedom for all children.
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