Weekly Wrap: What $3.5 billion means to the US regulator

After 22 days, the US’s AWS-3 auction has finally concluded, raising $3.5 billion. It’s the first auction since the regulator, the FCC, regained its authority to hold auctions last year and suggests there is still plenty of interest in bidding for spectrum.

However, despite the unique range of bidders and the billion-dollar proceeds, few have discussed where the money is going – on “Rip and Replace”.

This is the FCC’s programme to remove any mobile infrastructure from China’s Huawei and ZTE (deemed national security risks) and reimburse operators with fewer than 10 million customers for the trouble.

Started in 2021 with $1.9 billion in funding from Congress, Rip and Replace has transformed into a major financial burden for the regulator. The bill for removing Huawei equipment is actually around $4.9 billion, carriers have said.

The FCC borrowed $3 billion from Congress to support the programme in 2024 and 2025 and is repaying it with proceeds from the AWS-3 auction.

Up to $3.3 billion of the auction’s proceeds are to be used to cover this borrowing and “other commerce department programmes,” according to the FCC. It was a good job that the auction raised a sizeable amount!

In June, the FCC said it was 42% of the way through its funded Rip and Replace projects (53/126 done), but the programme has been plagued with delays.

In May, 30 operators were granted extensions after failing to hit the programme’s deadlines.

Supply chain issues, problems with extreme weather, funding and more have harmed Rip and Replace’s momentum – but if AWS-3 has done its job for the FCC in fully funding the project (although this is not guaranteed), the Commission will have freed itself from a troubling short-term issue.

Now, with 100 MHz of upper C-Band spectrum to be auctioned no later than July 2027, how will the FCC seek to direct future auction proceeds without the strain of debts to Congress upon it?

Here’s what else PolicyTracker has covered this week:

• Ukraine is set to release more 2.6 GHz spectrum for 4G
• SpaceX has said that the EU plan for 2 GHz could result in disruption to Starlink’s Ukraine service
• India’s mobile network operators are staking a claim to the 5.9 GHz band set aside for “vehicle-to-everything” services
• Sweden is planning to auction SDL spectrum in the 1.5 GHz band
• The US AWS-3 auction concluded with $3.5 billion raised and questions swirling about the impact of SpaceX’s involvement
• BERECBEREC stands for the Body of European Regu… and MEPs have criticised the spectrum proposals in the European Commission’s Digital Networks Act
• The UK regulator is consulting on proposals to move cautiously on the future of the 2 GHz MSSMobile-satellite service (MSS) describes a… (mobile satellite service) band and give incumbents Echostar and Viasat at least three more years of continued usage