“CTIA’s inaccurate US mid-band spectrum numbers (Analyst Angle)”

“CTIA and some of its mobile-industry members continue to push policy messaging and commissioned studies claiming that the US has a significant “gap” in mid-band commercial spectrum compared to other countries, especially in China and Europe, which undermines US 5G and future 6G networks.

There are two problems, however, with these doom-mongering claims of a mid-band deficit:

• CTIA misrepresents “mid-band” as frequencies from 3GHz upwards. The rest of the mobile industry refers to mid-band as starting at 1GHz.
• CTIA’s international comparisons mischaracterize some other countries’ low-power, shared mid-band spectrum allocations as high-power exclusive bands.

Together, these numerical mis-steps mean that CTIA’s advocacy systematically undercounts the US availability of mid-band frequencies, and overcounts the rest of the world.  When comparing apples to apples, the claimed mid-band spectrum deficit in the US shrinks hugely or disappears.”