30 Years of Spectrum Auctions and Wireless Leadership

On this day, thirty years ago, the FCC, the wireless industry, Congress, and others took a deep breath, crossed their fingers, and launched the world's first spectrum auction.

They had reason to be nervous.

Critics argued that auctions would never work. No one was sure if the proceeds would reach projections. After all, wasn't wireless a niche product with a limited market? Why would anyone bid? And when one of the servers crashed the night before, even the technology used to run the auction seemed suspect.

To the people overseeing it, success was uncertain while failure was seen as a 'career-killer'.

And then the auction started, and everything changed.

Today, it's widely understood that our pioneering work on spectrum auctions made America the world's wireless leader. This innovative form of allocating spectrum was honored with the Nobel Prize in Economics, and more than 100 countries around the world followed our lead and adopted our auction model. It is not an overstatement to say that billions of people worldwide benefit from internet connections running on auctioned spectrum.

It's a remarkable story and to tell it, we are releasing a series of new interviews over the next few weeks with some of the people who made it possible: Senator Ed Markey, former FCC Chairs Reed Hundt, Bill Kennard, and Tom Wheeler, former Chief of the FCC's Spectrum Auctions Program Kathleen Ham, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce at NTIA Tom Sugrue, and Noble Prize-winning economist Paul Milgrom, as well as current FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel.

The story they tell is full of courage and perseverance in the face of tremendous obstacles. It's also an incredible and uniquely American success story.

Today, thanks to the work that they and so many others did thirty years ago, wireless is integral to the way we connect with friends and family, conduct business, and live our day-to-day lives.

And wireless powers our economy.

Auctions have raised more than $233B for the U.S. Treasury, supporting a variety of government programs including the modernization of critical defense systems. Wireless providers have invested hundreds of billions more to put that spectrum to work to out-build their competition. In fact, providers invested a record $39B in 2022 alone. All that investment makes wireless the country's second-largest source of direct investment. Today, America's wireless industry supports 4.5M jobs and contributes $825B to our economy each year.

It's easy to get lost in the numbers, but auctions continue to have an impact-large and small-every day. The fastest growing home broadband service in America for two years running is 5G-made possible thanks to auctioned spectrum. 5G home broadband is bringing real competition to cable and making a real dent in the digital divide-more than 1 in 5 new 5G home subscribers are new to home broadband entirely.

Auctioned spectrum is also responsible for driving innovation across industries. Entrepreneurs and businesses increasingly rely on 5G's high speeds and low latency to build the future, from driverless cars to smart factories, connected hospitals, AR/VR education, and more.

And yet, today, on the thirtieth anniversary of the first spectrum auction, the country that jumpstarted the wireless era is without the very tool-auctions-that made it possible in the first place. Despite strong and widespread bipartisan support, the FCC is still without auction authority and there is no pipeline of auction-ready spectrum.

The story of the first spectrum auction-told from the perspective of the people who made it possible-is an important reminder of just how critical this tool is to our economic competitiveness and innovation leadership. To secure these benefits for another thirty years, it is vital that we reflect on their story, heed their words, and renew auction authority with a robust spectrum pipeline.