{"id":2277,"date":"2026-04-13T07:31:49","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T05:31:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/?p=2277"},"modified":"2026-03-30T11:48:31","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T09:48:31","slug":"golden-dome-push-sets-stage-for-telecom-battle-over-spectrum-access","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/?p=2277","title":{"rendered":"Golden Dome push sets stage for telecom battle over spectrum access"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The wildly ambitious Golden Dome missile-defense vision is turning up the heat on a long-running\u00a0fight\u00a0between the Pentagon and the telecommunications industry for control of certain radio frequencies.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat area of the spectrum is golden, and we need to protect it to maintain national security. And I use the word golden specifically, because the only way we can achieve\u00a0Golden Dome\u201d is by using frequencies around 3 gigahertz, Katie Arrington, who is performing the duties of the Pentagon chief information officer,\u00a0told\u00a0lawmakers Thursday at a hearing of the House Armed Services\u2019 panel on cyber, information technologies, and innovation. \u201cIt is critical for national security.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though Golden Dome would use novel space-based sensors, it would also rely on ground-based radars that often use the\u00a0S and L bands<\/a>\u00a0of the electromagnetic spectrum.\u00a0 For example, the Navy\u2019s\u00a0Aegis Combat System<\/a>\u00a0uses the\u00a0S-band<\/a>: the frequencies from 2 to 4 gigahertz. But these are the bands that telecommunications companies want to use to expand their 5G and 6G networks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat’s a frequency range where you get a good combination of precision and reach. Because if you go to higher frequencies, you don’t see as far because of attenuation. And if you go to lower frequencies, the precision and the resolution of the radar is not as good, so it’s hard to track small things that are going fast,\u201d Bryan Clark, senior fellow and director of the Hudson Institute\u2019s Center for Defense Concepts and Technology, told\u00a0Defense One<\/em>. \u201cMost of our air defense radars operate in this 3 to 3.2 gigahertz range. And so we would have to put a bunch of these radars [across] the United States as a part of Golden Dome. The problem is that’s also the frequency range where a lot of cell phone carriers would love to put more 5G infrastructure. Because just like it’s good for radars, it’s also good for 5G.\u201d<\/p>\n

Right now, on the coastlines, cellphone carriers have arrangements with the military to vacate parts of the spectrum when a radar is in use. The challenge is that those arrangements would have to become commonplace across the country to make Golden Dome a reality.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause we have all of these Aegis radars on ships, they have this spectrum sharing arrangement set up where when somebody turns on their Aegis radar, the cell phone carriers, the network operators, have to shift to a different frequency and get out of the way,\u201d Clark said.<\/p>\n

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\u201cYou’d have to do that same thing in the interior of the country, where, right now, [telecom companies] want to allocate more of those frequencies to 5G, so there’d be more spectrum sharing, which imposes costs on the carrier. They have to figure out how to move to other frequency bands.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

It\u2019s a long-running debate that\u00a0pits\u00a0increased consumer demand for next-generation networks against national security concerns.<\/p>\n

The squabble began in 2020 when the Federal Communications Commission\u00a0granted<\/a>\u00a0Ligado license to use the L-band, to which DOD and the National Telecommunication and Information Administration objected. That\u00a0led<\/a>\u00a0to a congressionally-mandated\u00a0report\u00a0to evaluate whether Ligado\u2019s systems would interfere with GPS and other satellite services. The National Academies of Sciences\u2019 2022\u00a0report\u00a0found that most commercial GPS systems would not experience harmful interference, but some\u00a0exquisite ones<\/a>\u00a0like those used in surveying, farming, and some defense applications could lose performance or stop working. Moreover, some of the satellite\u00a0services<\/a>\u00a0the Defense Department used \u201cwill experience harmful interference on their downlink caused by Ligado user terminals operating in the UL1 band,\u201d according to a 2023\u00a0analysis<\/a>\u00a0of interference issues.<\/p>\n

The Pentagon\u2019s heavily redacted 2023\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0on spectrum-sharing concluded \u201csharing of the 3100-3450 MHz band between federal [U.S. government] and commercial systems is not feasible unless certain regulatory, technological, and resourcing conditions are proven and implemented as part of a coordination framework.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Ligado Networks sued\u00a0the Defense Department in 2023 for $39 billion over claims the government unlawfully seized parts of the L-band spectrum the company was using. The company, which\u00a0filed<\/a>\u00a0for bankruptcy in January, originally planned to expand its 5G offerings in that area of the spectrum, but the Pentagon blocked the move, citing potential GPS disruptions.<\/div>\n
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The matter is complicated further by politics. The impending budget\u00a0reconciliation<\/a>\u00a0bill aims to\u00a0 raise $88 billion by restoring the FCC\u2019s ability to auction off parts of the spectrum, using the funds to\u00a0cover<\/a>\u00a0deficits or fund other initiatives.<\/p>\n

Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee have been\u00a0negotiating<\/a>\u00a0an agreement\u00a0 with the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee that would free up some of the wireless spectrum for auction and still protect the parts DOD uses.<\/p>\n

But defense hawks on both sides of the aisle have raised\u00a0concerns<\/a>\u00a0about selling off spectrum the military relies on.<\/p>\n

In a May 6\u00a0letter<\/a>\u00a0to the defense secretary, Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., warned that spectrum auctions would imperil the administration\u2019s Golden Dome efforts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis advanced missile defense system relies on a fusion of ground, air, and space-based sensors and radars paired with a variety of kill vehicles to protect us from a broad array of missile threats, including next-generation hypersonic missiles,\u201d wrote Cantwell, who is the ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee. \u201cThese sensors, radars, and counter-ballistic systems require significant spectrum resources. If Golden Dome remains a priority for the Administration, we need assurances that taking spectrum away from the Department of Defense will in no way impede or delay the effectiveness of this initiative.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Republicans seem to be split on the matter. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee, has been pushing for the spectrum auction authority because of its potential to generate billions of dollars in revenue. Cruz has argued that not selling off parts of the spectrum could mean missing out on additional resources for the military.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf DOD is technically unable to operate alongside wireless carriers using these bands domestically, how on earth could we expect to prevail in a Pacific conflict? It simply is not credible. There are also significant opportunity costs for our national defense in delaying spectrum auctions. A\u00a0pipeline<\/a>\u00a0would be lucrative, raising $100 billion or more that could go directly to rebuilding our military to funding border security and to financing Coast Guard polar icebreakers,\u201d Cruz said during a Feb. 19 hearing.<\/p>\n

He also\u00a0accused<\/a>\u00a0Pentagon staffers of lobbying Congress to vote down legislation that would reinstate the FCC\u2019s auctioning ability, according to a March 25 letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.<\/p>\n

Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., has\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0he\u2019d vote down any bill that allowed the 3.1-3.45 gigahertz part of the spectrum to be auctioned off.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany of our military\u2019s most important radar systems operate on the 3.1-3.45 gigahertz (GHz) band of the spectrum, referred to as the lower-3 band,\u201d Rounds\u00a0wrote<\/a>\u00a0in an op-ed. \u201cForcing the DOD to vacate or share those portions of the spectrum would cost taxpayers dearly\u2014the Navy alone estimates that it would cost them $250 billion to migrate their systems to other bands of the spectrum, and that would take time we do not have with the looming threat of a belligerent Communist China.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., who chairs the HASC CITI subcommittee, said it\u2019s important to understand which parts of the spectrum can be shared with industry and others that \u201cwe cannot trade off.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t tell you how important it is to us knowing that, yes, there’s some areas we can maybe work on with the industry. There’s areas that we cannot trade off. And I just know many of us on the Armed Services Committee are going to be the best stewards we know how to protect our national security here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, it\u2019s still a technical problem, one that\u2019s solvable with existing commercial technologies, Clark\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0senators in the February hearing. But the trick is getting companies to find an arrangement that balances commercial costs and protecting the Defense Department\u2019s spectrum access.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpectrum sharing schemes could allow the U.S. government to protect its military operations and support commercial uses, but companies and U.S. policymakers should ensure they account for the associated costs and complexity,\u201d he wrote in submitted testimony. \u201cThe challenge for regulators and Congress will be creating spectrum sharing schemes that protect necessary DOD access while remaining financially attractive for the telecommunications industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Pentagon is\u00a0working<\/a>\u00a0on a\u00a0dynamic spectrum-sharing<\/a>\u00a0solution that could alleviate interference concerns, but \u201cthat is yet to be determined,\u201d Arrington said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do need to look at ways to share [spectrum] in a sensible, realistic manner,\u201d she said. \u201cWe’re really looking to our study on DSS\u2014dynamic spectrum sharing. But the president has made it crystal clear that we are to protect the nation first.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The wildly ambitious Golden Dome missile-defense vision is turning up the heat on a long-running\u00a0fight\u00a0between the Pentagon and the telecommunications industry for control of certain radio frequencies. \u201cThat area of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2838,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,30],"tags":[416],"class_list":["post-2277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-military-tech","category-naval","tag-golden-dome"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Golden-Dome-US.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2277"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2839,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2277\/revisions\/2839"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}