CTIA - The Wireless Association
05/26/2023 | News release | Distributed by Public on 05/26/2023 08:39
2023 CTIA 5G Summit: To Secure America’s Future We Need More Exclusive Use, Full-Power, Licensed Spectrum
Nick Ludlum
Senior Vice President & Chief Communications Officer
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Last week, CTIA hosted our annual 5G Summit. Wireless leaders and experts from industry and government discussed the nation's 5G progress, the latest wireless innovations, and the urgent steps Congress and the Administration must take to secure America's 5G future.
CTIA President & CEO, Meredith Attwell Baker, kicked off the day focused on 5G's incredible first chapter and how wireless is unlocking new innovations, closing the digital divide, and driving economic and societal benefits for all Americans.
We saw remarkable consistency in message across the day with key themes around spectrum: how it flows through all these opportunities and successes, how we need more to lead in the industries of the future, and how to help secure our economic and national security, we must come together to create a compelling vision on 5G spectrum for our allies around the world.
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"Just as we have done with wireless equipment and semiconductors, we need a White House-led effort to identify mid-band spectrum. That's at least 1500 megahertz of full-powered licensed spectrum." - Meredith Attwell Baker, President and CEO, CTIA
Representing a powerful rallying cry advocating for our future, these comments were echoed by the industry and Jessica Rosenworcel, Chairwoman, FCC; Don Graves, Deputy Secretary, Department of Commerce; Anne Neuberger, Deputy National Security Advisor for Cyber and Emerging Technology, National Security Council; Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA-5), Chair, House Committee on Energy and Commerce; and Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), Chairman, Senate Commerce Science and Transportation Subcommittee on Communications, Media, and Broadband.
Here are my key takeaways from the 2023 CTIA 5G Summit:
5G's progress and potential is unmatched.
The U.S. leads the world in 5G availability, and our 5G networks cover over 325 million Americans. And it all happened faster than with 4G, thanks to the wireless industry investing world-leading amounts of capital. We heard from providers about how consumer adoption is up, and how 5G networks are supporting incredible data usage. 5G is off to a tremendous start, and our 5G platform will only become more powerful and transformative each year as network capabilities grow and the 5G innovation ecosystem takes off.
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"I think when this industry looks back, you're going to find that 5G was probably one of, if not the best G investment in the history of all the G's." - Jim Cathey, Chief Commercial Officer, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.
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"We are seeing massive adoption on the 5G network. Almost 2/3 of our customers now have a 5G smartphone in a very, very short period of time. Over 70% of the traffic on the network is 5G. That is a much, much faster growth rate than we ever saw in the 4G space or 3G. 5G is moving at real pace now." - Neville Ray, President, T-Mobile USA
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"When you take sensors, and you take artificial intelligence and analytics, and you combine those things with high-powered, low latency networks, you have the opportunity to rethink industries that haven't changed the way the operate in over 35 years… The technology that 5G enables, it's going to improve things like safety, productivity, and it's also going to improve the quality of our lives." - Shaun McCarthy, President of North America, Nokia
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"We've built a [5G] platform upon which people can innovate. If you look at 4G, it created trillions of dollars of economic value, and it did it by enabling people to take a mobile device and have a high quality connection. That's what created a mobile social media industry. There are things like that in 5G as well." - Mark Louison, EVP and GM, Networks Business, Samsung Electronics America
5G for home service is a game changer.
One of 5G's first compelling use cases is 5G fixed wireless access, or 5G for home service. It's bringing competition to cable and serving underserved and unserved customers with affordable, reliable, high-speed broadband, often in areas where the economic realities of laying fiber are challenging. Throughout the day, speakers remarked on its power, how it's offering a new way for people to connect, and how policymakers can help bring it to more communities.
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"The fastest growing fixed broadband business is fixed wireless broadband. In the U.S,. 5 million subscribers are on 5G fixed wireless today. It's great news. It's something we should be really proud of… It is the way to address the digital divide, not just in the U.S., but certainly globally, where fiber, in many countries, is not an option, so 5G is the way to go." - Niklas Heuveldop, President & CEO, Ericsson North America
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"The reality is in a county like ours, which is very mountainous, very cold, very rocky, and with winds that are customarily blowing at 50 to 60 miles an hour, fiber is not always the best alternative… it will take multiple solutions. We had the advantage of seeing a presentation of 5G [for home] in our county, and I was blown away by the power of that bandwidth and that technology to be able to go over a ridge through the trees and still deliver high-speed service." - Thomas Revels, Broadband Project Manager, Grayson County, Virginia
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"We should be thinking about, 'Let's get that last mile connected with fixed wireless, maybe fix the mobility gap on top of it at the same time, and then those homes can get connected in 7- 10 years to fiber.' But in the meantime, they're not left alone. They're able to live their lives to the full extent possible." - Adriana Rios Welton, Head of Legal and Government Affairs, UScellular
5G leadership should be a significant piece of U.S. national and economic security strategies.
The U.S. is facing a stiff challenge for 5G leadership from China, and securing our 5G leadership is critical to leading the innovations of the future. Throughout the day, speakers talked about the importance of maintaining our 5G leadership, and how wireless leadership supports continued economic and national security.
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"We certainly have seen China engaged in an effort to dominate 5G, and eventually 6G, because of its global import, because of its economic import, and because of its national security import… So the challenge posed by China's activities in these areas is that one nation…, a geopolitical competitor to the United States, could control the future of computing [and] the internet in a way that exceeds beyond its borders." - Anne Neuberger, Deputy National Security Advisor for Cyver and Emerging Technology, National Security Council
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"…it's really important that we show up [to the World Radiocommunications Conference] with big plans and also spectrum auction authority returned to us by Congress… it's vitally important that the United States continue to really be a leader here and not let other nations step into the fray and take over." - Jessica Rosenworcel, Chairwoman, FCC
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"American leadership and innovation in technology has been critical to our economic and national security for decades, and our success in leading in wireless telecommunications and working with global allies are key components of that." - Don Graves, Deputy Secretary, Department of Commerce
FCC spectrum authority expired for the first time in 30 years-its lapse is hurting America.
Leaders throughout the day spoke about what a mistake it was to let the FCC's auction authority expire, and the impact it's having on efforts to close the digital divide and secure U.S. economic and national security.
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"We are continuing to keep the pressure on and to highlight to colleagues and people on Capitol Hill the consequences of failing to reauthorize spectrum auction authority. Finding a path forward to make sure our networks are secure and to ensure that carriers can expand 5G across the United States is a top priority for the House Energy & Commerce Committee. " - Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA-5), Chair, House Committee on Energy & Commerce
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"… the need for reauthorization around spectrum and disagreements that are somehow eluding a solution that should be solved [are] creating more and more challenges and problems, not just short term but potentially long term. Those that are currently sitting on licenses that have already been voted on, but are not able to do much work, those licenses that were approved as spectrum authority lapsed, especially in rural parts of America and places where I call home." - Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) Chairman, Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Subcommittee on Communications, Media, and Broadband
"Spectrum policy is economic policy."
One of the most significant things I heard at the Summit was how important more spectrum is to our economy. Additional spectrum will allow providers to serve more Americans and meet demand in their communities-both rural and urban. Meeting demand means that people can connect in emergencies, create new businesses, and build the innovations of tomorrow. The robustness of our communications networks have a direct impact on U.S. economic success. It was made clear that the way to drive more growth is access to more exclusive-use, full-power licensed spectrum.
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"In a real-world example, for us in Avery County, North Carolina, we've launched several sites with CBRS and we're just not able to push that lower-power spectrum out as far as we'd like. And then as we're modeling the full-power C-band spectrum, we're able to cover two and a half times more houses in [the community of] Montezuma and across northern communities of Avery, North Carolina. " - Slayton Stewart, President & CEO, Carolina West Wireless
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"We are seeing the promise of spectral efficiency where we deploying mid-band to be at the rate that we've expected. Wherever we deploying mid-band, we are seeing 30% growth in data consumption… We are going to all need additional full-power, licensed spectrum so we can continue and build high performing, secure, and open networks." - Igal Elbaz, SVP Technology & Network Services, Network Chief Technology Officer, AT&T
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"We're deploying over a hundred megahertz of spectrum in one fell swoop. I've been in this industry for 30 years and I don't think anybody's ever done that in their initial deployment... That doesn't mean that we don't need spectrum, because the industry is always going to have an insatiable need for spectrum." - Dave Mayo, Executive Vice President of Network Development, DISH Wireless
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"We are growing. In our network we've never grown the amount of usage that's going through a wireless network as much as we are in the last year… And at some point you get Shannon's law, you can only fit so many bits through a particular hertz. So you need to have a pipeline of spectrum and, really, we need mid-band spectrum." - Kyle Malady, CEO, Verizon Business