President Trump recently signed into law the One Big Beautiful Bill, legislation he hopes will bring his vision of the Golden Age of America to reality.
While the bill faced criticism from both sides of the congressional aisle — Elon Musk vowed to start a new political party upon the bill’s passage — the bill is a win for telecom innovation.
Senators understood that to unlock that Golden Age for the digital economy, it is critical to incorporate policies that remove roadblocks to connecting Americans to high-speed internet. The Senate recognized that the digital future doesn’t hinge on fiber cables and cloud servers; it rides invisible highways in the sky. The lawmakers did their part to ensure that vision can become a reality.
Most importantly, the Senate Commerce Committee is reauthorizing the Federal Communications Commission’s spectrum auction authority, which lapsed in March 2023, until 2034. These auctions have raised billions for the Treasury while simultaneously empowering the rise of technologies like 5G, IoT, and next-generation services. With the FCC operating under a cloud of expired authority, it undermined market confidence by limiting long-term planning for businesses.
Furthermore, the committee asks the commission to identify spectrum to auction and identify spectrum that might be ripe for reallocation. The timeline is brisk but deliberate: 200 MHz must be identified within two years, the rest within four. This structure aims to push spectrum out of government silos and into the hands of telecom innovators at a time when emerging technologies like AI applications offer exciting opportunities to develop and deploy new products.
One can appreciate that the committee is seeking to intertwine spectrum policy with fiscal pragmatism. Proceeds from future auctions are clearly intended to feed the Treasury, especially as Congress eyes new revenue sources to offset federal spending. There’s an underlying confidence here. Auctioning government-held spectrum can be an economic engine and a policy lever to advance national connectivity goals. Not only is that a powerful synthesis, but a smart one, too!
Part of the reason it is so exciting to see Congress moving on this is that spectrum realignment is a notoriously technical and politically fraught endeavor. Historically, federal agencies are reluctant to relinquish spectrum they perceive as mission-critical, even if they’re underutilizing it. And more work will still need to be done to open up more of the mid-band spectrum, which the Defense Department has held onto under the guise of national security.
However, this part of the Big Beautiful Bill represents an exciting inflection point. It modernizes the statutory scaffolding behind spectrum allocation and forces a long-overdue reckoning with inefficient federal holdings. If executed with transparency and resolve, it could inject more spectrum into the commercial bloodstream, expanding wireless capacity, closing the digital divide, and solidifying American leadership in global tech.
This isn’t just about electromagnetic waves. It’s about restoring an agency’s long-lost and valuable authority, unlocking the latent value of a national asset, and laying the necessary groundwork for building the backbone of tomorrow’s digital economy.