OPINION:
In 2020, the Federal Communications Commission moved technology policy forward by opening the full 6 gigahertz (GHz) wireless spectrum band for Wi-Fi use.
This gave American consumers and businesses access to faster, more reliable wireless connections.
It wasn’t done with much fanfare, though, so most Americans don’t realize the implications. They probably don’t even know what the 6 GHz band is, but it is important. It means that home internet works better and office networks can handle more devices.
Not only that, but hospitals can also move data more reliably and smartphone streams smoothly even in jam-packed stadiums or airports.
That’s what 6 GHz Wi-Fi makes possible.
Opening the 6 GHz band helped codify America’s global technology leadership. The industry is still led by American companies and innovators. Amazon’s EERO and Google’s Nest power next-generation devices that mesh networks in millions of homes.
Apple’s latest iPhones feature Wi-Fi 7, which uses wireless silicon that was developed in-house. Cisco and HPE Aruba build the 6 GHz enterprise networks that keep offices, factories, airports and stadiums connected.
Broadcom supplies advanced Wi-Fi chipsets worldwide. Every country that follows our lead and opens the 6 GHz band for Wi-Fi gives these American tech leaders a bigger market, meaning more revenue and more jobs here at home.
But our biggest rival for global technological primacy, the People’s Republic of China, thinks it can beat us out for global leadership.
This would be a tragedy if it happened. Beijing is reflexively hostile to the freedom and flexibility of Wi-Fi’s “permissionless” framework, instead reserving the 6 GHz band for its state-owned wireless carriers that use Huawei-manufactured hardware.
While America’s market is generally open to the world, China’s is closed. Beijing doesn’t allow competitors, meaning that the race for dominance is on — and it’s a race the United States cannot afford to lose.
It all comes to a head in 2027 in Shanghai, at the World Radiocommunication Conference. At the summit, policymakers will face government officials and company sales reps engaged in extended pressure campaigns regarding the development of the 6 GHz band, urging countries to “pick a side” between America and China.
The stakes are enormous and the Trump administration deserves credit for holding the line. National Telecommunications and Information Administration Administrator Arielle Roth has been unwavering, rightly calling Wi-Fi a “quintessentially American technology” and reaffirming the administration’s commitment to evangelizing America’s Wi-Fi policy.
FCC Chair Brendan Carr, who voted for the original 2020 decision, has now doubled down, advocating rules that expand the flexibility for unlicensed devices in the band.
That is exactly the message that foreign governments need to hear. America made a choice. The choice worked and we intend to stand by it.
We’re shouldn’t turn back, which is something the U.S. wireless carriers who opposed the 2020 decision on 6 GHz won’t like. They’d rather see the band auctioned off for their own use instead.
That too would be a mistake. It would reopen the 6 GHz fight and threaten to undo one of America’s clearest wireless policy successes. It would also make the United States look unsure of its future just as China is urging other nations to move in its direction.
Washington policymakers must stop treating 6 GHz as though it were a domestic telecom squabble. It is a test of whether America can recognize a win, defend it and persuade the world to follow our lead.
The world needs to know where America stands. Our current policy works. U.S. companies lead. U.S. consumers benefit. Our allies need a better alternative to Chinese-controlled network infrastructure. The answer is 6 GHz Wi-Fi — and Washington should say so without hesitation.
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