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https://broadbandbreakfast.com/fcc-draft-order-would-decline-tribal-window-for-aws-3-auction/
Jul 8, 2025 — 2 min read
The Federal Communications Commission is poised not to allow tribes to apply for free spectrum licenses in its next auction.
A public draft of an order the agency will vote on at its July meeting would decline a Tribal priority window for the upcoming auction of AWS-3 licenses. The FCC’s spectrum auction authority was restored Friday, but Congress had late last year approved a one-off reauction of 200 AWS-3 licenses, almost all of which Dish had previously returned to the agency.
Mobile carriers use the spectrum for their 5G networks, with the most valuable of the available licenses covering Boston, Chicago, and New York City. The FCC must start the auction by June 23, 2026.
Tribes and consumer advocates were successful in getting the agency to ask for input on a Tribal priority window when it proposed rules for the AWS-3 auction, and as part of a separate inquiry about the upper C-band. They said the measure would help ensure airwaves would be deployed for critical services on Tribal lands, which are more sparsely populated and tend to have worse broadband access.
The wireless carriers opposed the move, saying it would delay the auction and that the law approving the AWS-3 auction – a means of raising money to reimburse small ISPs for ripping blacklisted Chinese gear out of their networks – did not allow for anything other than a competitive bidding process for each license.
The draft order sided with CTIA, the 5G industry trade group, on both fronts.
“We agree with CTIA that conducting a Tribal licensing window, which would remove spectrum prior to the auction from the congressionally specified inventory and could potentially reduce the auction proceeds available for the Supply Chain Reimbursement Program, would not further the public interest goals of the Spectrum and Secure Technology and Innovation Act,” the agency wrote.
The FCC had a seven-month Tribal priority window before its 2.5 GigaHertz auction in 2020 under then-Chairman Ajit Pai, which saw more than 360 Tribal entities secure licenses. Pai is now the head of CTIA.
The Coalition of Large Tribes, which says its member tribes cover more than half the Native American population, wrote to the FCC in support of a Tribal priority window on Monday.
“I understand it is late in the process for the AWS-3 auction, which is fast approaching, but I write to express the importance of spectrum access to the COLT member tribes,” OJ Semans Sr., COLT’s executive director, wrote. “Tribes cannot compete with deep pocket corporations, yet require access to the essential services for Tribal Healthcare, Law Enforcement and Schools among others that wireless services provide.”
The draft order would finalize other rules for the upcoming auction, including providing a 15 percent bidding credit for rural participants, and defining small and very small businesses as those with less than $55 million and $22 million in gross revenue respectively.
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Additional Resources
COLT Letter to the FCC on July 5th, 2025