Telecommunication tower with mesh dots, glittering particles for wireless telecommunication technology (Getty images)
WASHINGTON — Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr announced today the launch of the Council for National Security within the agency aimed at fending off foreign bad actors, particularly China.
“Today, the country faces a persistent and constant threat from foreign adversaries, particularly the CCP [Chinese Communist Party],” Carr said in a news release today. “These bad actors are always exploring ways to breach our networks, devices, and technology ecosystem. It is more important than ever that the FCC remain vigilant and protect Americans and American companies from these threats.”
The council will be headed by Adam Chan, a former associate at the Boyden Gray PLLC law firm, per the release.
Today’s announcement outlines three focus areas for the council. The first is to reduce the US’s dependencies on foreign adversaries regarding tech and telecommunications supply chains. Second is to “mitigate” the US’s vulnerabilities to surveillance, espionage and cyberattacks. Lastly, the council will “ensure” that the US outpaces China in its race to develop and deploy “critical technologies” such as 5G, 6G, artificial intelligence, satellites and space, quantum, robotics, autonomous systems, and the internet of things.
The FCC and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) are the two organizations responsible for setting US spectrum policy, and governing which users get access when to what bandwidths for what functions. The FCC regulates commercial spectrum usage while the NTIA is responsible for advocating for spectrum usage for military departments.
The announcement comes against the background of a tug-of-war between commercial providers and the Defense Department over usage of key parts of the spectrum, specifically between the 1 GhZ (gigahertz) to 6 GHz range, which makes up the 3.1-3.45 and 3.5 GHz S-band — widely considered to be the “Goldilocks” zone of the spectrum.
The DoD has contended that this part of the spectrum band is essential for its various satellite communications, radars and navigation systems. However, US and foreign commercial companies covet those frequencies for providing high-speed wireless service to civilian and military users alike.
When it comes to the fight over the spectrum, John Sherman, former DoD chief information officer and now dean of the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, previously told Breaking Defense that “it is a zero sum game” for the DoD.
“There is finite spectrum, and the physics of the spectrum, about the desirability of the lower [3 GHz band] both for our target acquisition radars and for 5G, this makes it very difficult,” he said.
Carr is viewed as someone who supports the commercial sector over DoD on the spectrum fight. While there are likely a multitude of reasons as to why Carr is making this move, including the recent attacks on the US telecommunications sector facilitated by Chinese threat actor Salt Typhoon, supporters of the Pentagon may look at today’s news with a wary eye.
