Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz (R-TX) is urging National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard to investigate “potential malign influence orchestrated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) against American leadership in next generation telecommunications technologies.”
He outlined how the CCP and affiliated entities like Huawei, may be leading misinformation campaigns to oppose reauthorization of the FCC spectrum auction authority and the creation of a pipeline of spectrum for commercial use. “Auctioning additional government-held spectrum for commercial use in the U.S. is vital for economic growth, national security, and preserving America’s global technology leadership,” says Cruz in a letter.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr echoed these issues, in a letter to the committee. ‘”When we free up spectrum, the world takes notice,” Carr wrote. “It lets America drive the important standard-setting process, rather than taking the results that our adversaries would dish out. And it ensures that Huawei and ZTE do not dominate the development of vital, next-generation services.”
Cruz is still working to get the restoration of the FCC’s auction authority in the pending budget reconciliation bill in Congress, according to Broadband Breakfast. “It’s a big pay-for and that bill, you got to pay for a whole lot and [the] spectrum auction is a big, big pay-for and it’s profoundly important,” Cruz said this week.
By Leslie Stimson, Inside Towers Washington Bureau Chief
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