Bill is headed to President Joe Biden’s desk
Congress has passed a bill that would enable T-Mobile US and other winners in the most recent auction of 2.5 GHz licenses to take ownership of spectrum licenses that were acquired during a 2022 auction but have been in processing limbo as a result of the expiration of the FCC’s spectrum auction authority.
The Federal Communications Commission’s statutory authority to auction licenses expired in early March 2023. As a result, the FCC stopped all auction-related activity—including processing the transfer of licenses which had already been auctioned and paid for as part of the 2.5 GHz auction, which wrapped up in the fall of 2022.
The 5G SALE Act (passed by the Senate this fall and now, by the House of Representatives as well) would authorize the FCC to process those licenses—but it does not fully reinstate the regulator’s auction authority.
Both the House and the Senate have passed the bill, which is now headed to President Joe Biden to be signed into law.
T-Mobile US won more than 7,100 licenses in that auction, at a cost of about $304 million. Despite the dominance of T-Mobile US as a winning bidder, however, 63 qualified bidders walked away with licenses. The FCC says that 77% of those winning bidders qualified as either small businesses or entities which serve rural communities.
Competitive Carriers Association President and CEO Tim Donovan urged President Biden to swiftly sign the stopgap measure, and added that “CCA hopes this momentum will carry into Congress fully reinstating FCC spectrum auction authority.”
