Today, the Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai circulated a draft Report and Order that would make the 6 GHz band available for unlicensed spectrum use. The first significant new allocation of midband spectrum for unlicensed use in 17 years, opening the 6 GHz band is vitally important to enabling the deployment of next generation Wi-Fi Technology, called Wi-Fi 6. 

Today, Senators Maggie Hassan (D-NH) and Cory Gardner (R-CO) introduced the Advancing Innovation and Reinvigorating Widespread Access to Viable Electromagnetic Spectrum, or “AIRWAVES,” Act. The bill establishes a pipeline to move federal spectrum into commercial use, ensuring significant capacity for both exclusive use (“licensed”) spectrum and shared use (“unlicensed”) spectrum.

Last week, Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon), House Transportation Committee ranking member, sent a letter to both the Federal Communications Commission’s Chairman Tom Wheeler and the Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx targeting the dedicated short-range communications (DSRC) technology now being deployed in some cars.

Today, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted 3-2 to issue a proposed fine of $718,000 against M.C. Dean, Inc. for deliberately blocking visitors to the Baltimore Convention Center from using their own Wi-Fi hotspots.

Today, the Federal Communications Commission fined the Smart City Networks (“Smart City”) for jamming Wi-Fi. According to the FCC enforcement action and accompanying consent decree, Smart City operates Wi-Fi access networks at convention centers around the country. Smart City repeatedly jammed the private Wi-Fi hotspots of convention center attendees to force consumers to pay to use the convention center Wi-Fi access operated by Smart City.

The following statement is attributed to Gigi B. Sohn, president and co-founder of Public Knowledge:

“Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Kerry was quite right to propose legislation to fix what is obviously a broken system that penalizes consumers when cable operators and broadcasters can’t agree on payments for programming.

“He was also correct to scold the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for its failure to start action on a petition submitted by Public Knowledge and many others this March that seeks to revise the retransmission consent process.

“The Cablevision-Fox dispute is only the latest in a series of recent retransmission-consent disagreements that have placed consumers in the middle of big-business negotiations.  These disputes will only increase, and will require prompt FCC action.

Unlicensed spectrum is not the “Wi-Fi band”: it’s open for any person and any device to use, for any (legal) purpose, and it’s open to a wide variety of technologies.

Unlicensed spectrum has never been more popular! The reason people love unlicensed spectrum is because it is the “public commons” of spectrum that is open to anyone to use and has led to innovations that people use every day. Technologies such as Bluetooth, cordless phones, baby monitors, and Wi-Fi all come from use of unlicensed spectrum, and we expect to see many new innovations in the near future as a result of unlicensed spectrum, such as self-driving cars.

On December 11th, the Federal Communications Commission voted to move forward with much needed and long awaited reforms to our nation’s E-rate program. With a 3-2 vote, Democratic Commissioners moved forward on a process that allocates $1 billion annually for expanded Wi-Fi connections in our schools and libraries.

Whether or not you’re in Austin for SXSW, click here and sign a petition to show your support for open networks!

Events like South by Southwest can highlight the limitations of wireless Internet access. Put a large number of techies in the same city and as they all try to tweet, share photos, and stay connected they can quickly saturate Internet connections–leading to websites not loading, messages not being sent, and connections dropping.

Engineers have already solved this problem–but there are legal challenges as well as technical challenges. Policymakers in DC have to make sure that FCC rules allow people to take advantage of new wireless technologies that are already being built. They need to set WiFi free.