
Summary Bullets:
- The C-band consists of 500 megahertz of mid-band spectrum between 3.7 and 4.2 GHz. The FCC will be auctioning off this spectrum beginning in December 2020.
- This auction is especially important as mobile operators in the U.S. need mid-band spectrum to flesh out their 5G networks and consolidate their positioning to both consumers and enterprises.
The C-band consists of 500 megahertz of mid-band spectrum between 3.7 and 4.2 GHz. The FCC will be auctioning off this spectrum beginning in December 2020. Investment firms are betting that this auction will generate $25 to $35 billion, a significantly larger amount than the $4.6 billion that the CBRS auction brought in this past August.
Why Is This Important?
Mobile operators in the U.S. need mid-band spectrum to flesh out their 5G networks. The 5G networks of AT&T and Verizon are dominated by two spectrum types: millimeter wave (mmWave) spectrum, which has been rolled out in dense urban locations but does not propagate cost-effectively to rural areas; and low-band spectrum, which has been rolled out much more broadly throughout the country but has not achieved the kinds of speed and latency enhancements required to excite enterprises and developers looking to power new innovative use cases. T-Mobile inherited 2.5 GHz mid-band spectrum holdings from Sprint as part of the merger and has been using it to offer what the operator calls its ‘layer cake’ approach of low-, mid-, and high-band spectrum, designed to meet the needs of different target segments and use cases. Continue reading “So We Thought the CBRS Auction Was Big; Here Comes C-Band”