Protecting Tribal Access to Spectrum – Episode 17 of Unbuffered

Christopher Mitchell (00:15)
Hey, it’s time for an Unbuffered Tuesday. Get rid of the hey wait a minute. Matt, what are you doing in the studio?

Matthew Rantanen (00:22)
what? Where? This is my office.

Christopher Mitchell (00:23)
Weren’t you just here? I feel like I

feel like we did this already. I’m confused. All right. Well, I guess we’ll just go with it. I’m I’m Chris Mitchell at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. I’m I’m back with Matt on Unbuffered. ⁓ our show about ⁓ well, whatever we want to talk about, I guess. But like really it’s about how technology ⁓ impacts the way we regulate technology, impacts the way we live our lives and stuff like that. ⁓ and getting it right.

Matthew Rantanen (00:27)
⁓ maybe.

Christopher Mitchell (00:50)
And Matt, I wanted to have you back on because there’s something that it looks like we’re not getting right and we’re pretty concerned about where it’s going. The tribal license window, ⁓ which has been used well. ⁓ we got new spectrum that’s about to move and we got some bad news. I don’t know if you just want to give the overview and then we’ll tell people that don’t know what it is all about it.

Matthew Rantanen (01:10)
Yeah, I mean the overview is that ⁓ there’s opposition ⁓ speaking with the FCC that is influencing you know, ⁓ the perspective that there shouldn’t be a tribal licensing window ever. and we we find that hard to deal with. ⁓ you know, as sovereign nations within the borders of the United States, ⁓ you know, it’s it’s really the rights of the tribe to be able to access these resources and through treaties and you know.

a long legal process, you know, at some point there may be ⁓ a c a country giving back all of the spectrum to the tribes. But we ⁓ you know, we have been working in the past with with a mechanism and that mechanism seems to be t ⁓ being taken away from us at the moment.

Christopher Mitchell (01:57)
Right. So there’s a spectrum coming up. The rules for that are being decided right now. In fact, I believe tomorrow afternoon as we record this, and I think for people that really jump on it, you might get it before then. But there’s gonna be ⁓ a what’s it called? the sunshine kicks in. And so so the FCC’s making a rule. There’s rules around that. We’ll explain how it goes, but basically we’re concerned that we’re about to not just lose ⁓ window on this.

Matthew Rantanen (02:00)
Yeah.

Yeah, sunshine period. Yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (02:24)
particular spectrum slice, but that it’s gonna be much harder to get ones on future ones. So I wanted Matt on though, because Matt’s been there since the the earlier days in which a lot of the precedents were set. ⁓ so and as Matt said the history of this does go back to treaties. It goes back to well before even Matt was born. And you’re not dead yet either. So ⁓

Matthew Rantanen (02:45)
I’m not that old. Yeah, I’m not dead. Think I’ll go for a walk.

Christopher Mitchell (02:53)
So I think maybe the the place to start is I think maybe where you got involved with it and and ⁓ the importance of ⁓ of the antecedents to the modern tribal license window. But we’re gonna talk about spectrum that allows tribes to use some of the wireless access. And just for people that are really new to this, you have to understand how insulting it is when you’re in an area where you don’t have decent Internet access and you’re not allowed to use good spectrum to get it out to people because someone else has control of it and they’re not using it within a hundred miles of your area.

And you’re not allowed to use it at all. And so this is one way of dealing with that. But this is a real thing that like really impacts people. So, Matt, how do how do we get down this path?

Matthew Rantanen (03:33)
⁓ you know, it’s it’s twenty-five years ago when I started working with the Southern California Tribal Chairman’s Association, you know, we’re building a a network and the tools that we understood how to use and were mentored through were ⁓ wireless connections. And ⁓ we’re using Spectrum to unlicensed Spectrum or license exempt or whatever, to be able to connect two points together and pass data. And so in in the training that we got from from Hans-Werner Braun at the HP Ren,

Organization. ⁓ you know, we got some really basic, like, here’s two antennas. It’s using this type of spectrum. It lives here. You’re talking through these radio waves, you’re passing data. ⁓ now go play with it. And once we realize the value of that, then we’re like, okay, we need more of this. We need to be able to, you know, propagate this and and be widespread. We need to hook up a bunch of houses to this. How do we, you know, how do we start going down these paths? And so we started looking into it.

⁓ talking to experts like Harold Feld and and Sascha Meinrath and folks. And we were early in the game, we were building a wireless network ⁓ that was to support the tribes of SETCA. And, you know, I I participated in international community community wireless summits with Sascha Sascha Mindrath. That’s where I met Harold. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ you and I met there. We I mean it was a really good foundational start to, you know, to

Christopher Mitchell (04:52)
That’s where you and I met long before we we’d actually did anything together.

Matthew Rantanen (05:01)
This bigger space that we’re in today. But eventually we realized we didn’t have enough spectrum. oddly enough, it came up ⁓ through ⁓ folks that were standing up radio stations and somewhat pirate at the time, ⁓ radio stations, but you know, then low power FM. And then ⁓ there was an opportunity for tribes to actually participate.

And I was ⁓ the chair of the board of native native public media at the time. And there was an opportunity to get together ⁓ and talk policy about ⁓ FM radio spectrum and whether or not tribes could get a license. So ⁓ you know, through the work at the FCC with Geoffrey Blackwell and others and Irene Flannery, we were able to come up with ⁓ a tribal priority window for FM licensing for a station ⁓ to cover tribal specific land. So

If a tribe was to apply for their license over their land to serve their community, ⁓ they would prioritize in that competition as well as get that license, ⁓ and it would be ⁓ free of fees. renewable every I think 10 years. And so we pushed very hard to get that through the FCC’s rulemaking process. ⁓ it made it through. ⁓

And we over doubled the amount of tribal FM radio stations that were out there and native public media still works with those radio stations today. and you know, it was it was a great piece of of ⁓ rulemaking. So fast forward a bit, ⁓ we’re all building broadband networks, ⁓ you know, we’re hybridizing things between fiber, wireless and and other opportunities. And we have ⁓ run into the wall of

There is not enough spectrum out here for us to actually be able to deploy to the number of homes in a reservation from one distribution point. So managing the spectrum became a task and you know, building multiple towers to serve one area versus serving them all off of one tower, ⁓ became a necessity because there wasn’t enough spectrum. We were interfering with ourselves. So, you know, ⁓ opportunities came up.

Christopher Mitchell (07:15)
Sorry, that’s just

but to be to be clear, and I think it might help for people that aren’t as technically sophisticated to understand, there’s plenty of spectrum out there, but you’re only allowed to use certain chunks of it, right? And I I was trying to think, I was actually using a walkie-talkie this weekend when I was out doing my photography gig. And I was I was thinking about it because I was like I was thinking in one of our events, we might want to actually do this and like hold one up and be like, Hey, like, could I like use

Like there’s there’s a spectrum that is reserved for walkie-talkie use, right? Like low-powered walkie-talkies. And like you could put an FM station on there, it’d probably sound terrible, ⁓ I think, you know, for this chunk of spectrum. Right. but like in three you but we’ve all decided that like for this chunk of spectrum, we’re only like anyone can use it with walkie-talkies under if as long as they follow basic rules of how how powerful they are and things like that, right? And it’s like that for all kinds of different slices of the spectrum. When you say like you’re using all the spectrum, like

Matthew Rantanen (07:50)
Yeah. Wouldn’t go that far. Yeah.

Right.

Christopher Mitchell (08:11)
You’re allowed to use like four small slices and you’re using all of that. But there’s all kinds of spectrum around you that no one else is using that you are not allowed to use.

Matthew Rantanen (08:20)
Yeah, and as you said on the intro, you know, there is there’s a whole boatload of spectrum out there that is not being used and will never be used over tribal lands by those that hold the licenses for it. ⁓ it just doesn’t suit their interests. It’s not part of their economic model, it’s not part of their delivery system, it’s not their target audience. It’s not, you know, there’s a number of reasons why they wouldn’t serve that community, and a few reasons why they should serve that community.

But we know they’re not going to, so why not let tribes have access to that over those tribal lands? So yeah, as we as I was saying that we are using all the available unlicensed spectrum that we are allowed to use. We’ve done things like licensing point-to-point so that we remove, you know, one chunk of spectrum out of the equation so that we can now use it to distribute with. We’ve done a number of things, but ⁓ we still are up against the wall with not enough tools in the toolbox, if you will. So

Two point five gigahertz educational broadcast spectrum is being recalled to the FCC because it was misused or n underutilized. Yeah, underutilized. And

Christopher Mitchell (09:26)
It was it was being done like ten years ago. It was being recalled then. Right. You’re you’re you’re

speaking in the present tense about something that happened a little while ago.

Matthew Rantanen (09:34)
All right. So in the past. ⁓ so so this is happening. We’re we’re recognizing this is happening. We were would like access to that spectrum because it’s good spectrum to be able to serve communities with ⁓ exactly what we’re doing with the other unlicensed space. And it would be great to be a license holder because not only do you have that tool and tool toolbox to be a license holder ⁓ and and control that spectrum without interference, it is

Christopher Mitchell (09:36)
Ha ha.

Matthew Rantanen (10:01)
For tribes, which is a whole nother tangent, it is a an economic tool. It is a ⁓ a a tangible asset or a bankable asset that they can borrow money against because it has intrinsic value and it can be proven what the value is at the FCC that you can borrow money against it to build network and and you know, build out your your communications. So it, you know, it has two two values to tribes. ⁓ and so, you know, no, go ahead.

Christopher Mitchell (10:25)
Right. Sorry, and I I I thought I would share that

in the course of of working on this issue in the last week, we’ve heard multiple times from Chickasaw Nation about how past spectrum auctions, when they did not have a seat at the table, they would have the companies that were going for the spectrum would come to them and ask them for tribal consent basically to support their effort of of getting the spectrum. And they would then use that like permission, you know, and support from the tribe.

in order to get the spectrum and then they would turn their back and not do anything for the tribe. And so that’s a d different dynamic. If the tribe itself has the license and can actually still work with that provider, that provider would still get the license, but they would actually have to make good on promises that they were making. And so it changes the dynamic there as well.

Matthew Rantanen (11:11)
That’s right. And there’s been a number of those cases, not just Chickasaw that have happened and you know, ⁓ tribes bargaining in good faith over, you know, opportunities and trying to be supportive, but then getting the short end of the sick again, ⁓ in these situations. So, ⁓ you know, 2.5 GHz was an opportunity to reapply that language from the FM priority, and we were able to get a tribal priority window, not a licensing window, but a tribal priority licensing window.

to be applied to 2.5 GHz you know, FCC promoted that they expected 12 applications. It’s really based on the number of tribal telecommunications companies that exist. ⁓ you know, there were over 400 applications, I think, for ⁓ you know, 330 some entities received mul you know, applications for this. And, you know, that that is being built out, is being utilized today. And ⁓ and so I think it proved concept that is it’s a valuable

A valuable piece of the puzzle for tribes. And I think, you know, moving forward, then anytime that Spectrum is gonna move, either get warehoused or get auctioned or get renamed or reclassified or, you know, painted a different color, ⁓ tribes wanted to be ⁓ able to get access to that ⁓ as it becomes, you know, active ⁓ over the tribal lands. And so we’ve been pushing for another tribal priority window in multiple.

auctions that have come up, but we have been rejected in the process and actually to the point where things are being downscaled from a tribal priority window to a tribal licensing window now. We are now stuck with and are still trying to defeat the rural tribal lands definition, ⁓ which causes tribes. Yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (12:57)
Right. So let’s pause, let’s let’s pause there

and come back to that. So so basically for people to understand, all of this spectrum that we’re talking about is managed by the federal government and they periodically change how it’s being used, often because it’s not being used efficiently, ⁓ or because they could do something, and this is relevant for this space, they could basically say to the group of current users of that spectrum, Hey, we’ll pay you this amount if you’ll go away.

And not use it anymore. And then we’ll use it for this other thing that’s worth a bunch more. And so let’s just if I made numbers up, we’re gonna we’re gonna license this. We’re gonna have a s we’re gonna have an auction and we think we’re gonna raise a billion dollars ⁓ from people that wanna pay for it. And we’re gonna give you ten million dollars to leave it alone, and then we’ll have the rest of that money’s left over and we’ll put it into the general treasury or use it for other purposes. Generally it goes back to the treasury, I think. And and so it’s important to understand.

Like the spectrum gets moved around and reorganized ⁓ over different times. The spectrum that we’re talking about is often not exclusively, but it is often in areas that aren’t going to raise ⁓ large prices in the auction. ⁓ it’s often in areas where, you know, if a company like AT&T were to get it, they’re not even really gonna build it out there necessarily. And it’s certainly not gonna be a priority. And so these are areas that are often ⁓ not really gonna sway the the value of the auction.

In particular because of the way it’s been constructed. So even though we think the 2.5 GHz was a big success, there was a significant problem with that. And that was that it was kind of there was an arbitrary decision made by ⁓ Chairman Pai, who we give him credit for pushing this through and making it happen. However, he only did it in ⁓ with a definition of certain rural tribes and left out a bunch of tribes that could really use it. So that’s what you’re getting into there with ⁓ the rural tribes definition.

We had hoped not only to have a travel licensing window moving forward, but that it would be available to more tribes than were previously allowed to be involved in the 2.5 GHz. So that’s just sort of like a preview for what Matt’s about to share.

Matthew Rantanen (15:04)
Yeah, that’s right. And ⁓ you know, the the rural tribal lands definition removes any any tribe that’s adjacent or within twenty-five miles of a population of fifty thousand or greater. And a lot of times the tribes are pushed to the edge of society as it existed previously, and society has then suburbed its way out to these reservations. So the population density has grown next to them, even though the services never came to them. So, you know, it’s it’s a situation where if you step one foot across that

tribal border, ⁓ that tribal boundary, the, you know, the resources are gone. And and we’re trying to, you know, compete against that and and get the definition to be able to support all the tribes, not just ones that are far away. ⁓ you know, we I I was on a call today with the FCC and we heard a couple of of ⁓ folks speak up. One of them was the Shoshone-Bannock, and that tribe did not get

access to the 2.5 licensing window because of that very definition. And and they’re in Idaho.

Christopher Mitchell (16:06)
And they’re in Idaho. Like it’s not like

they’re not they’re not outside Denver.

Matthew Rantanen (16:10)
Right. So you know, so there’s it’s definitely a problem with the equation and we’d like to fix that. ⁓ you know, we go ahead.

Christopher Mitchell (16:18)
So

I think I mean one of the things to ⁓ to ⁓ to understand is that there are two major auctions happening right now. AWS three, and I think the AWS three we w we didn’t have very high hopes, right? I mean it wasn’t as good a spectrum. We wouldn’t be able to make as much use of it necessarily. So we wanted to see a licensing window. We know people would have done some good stuff with it, but the upper C-band is moving now, and that’s what the rulemaking is on right now about the rules for that auction. And that’s where we’ve run into this buzzsaw where we’re really

really upset about ⁓ the way the rules have been proposed, not only suggesting that there would not be a tribal licensing window for the C-band, but suggesting that there would be no more licensing windows under the current law, which could be, you know, in effect for the next ten years, basically when a fair amount of spectrum is going to move. So so Matt and I are part of and I don’t I want to give cr Harold credit. Harold Feld and Public Knowledge, Michael Calabri a New America. ⁓ they’ve done really great work. I didn’t

Want to have them on the show last minute. They’re really busy with all of this stuff. And I thought Matt and I could explain it fairly well ⁓ at this. but but they’re working right now, ⁓ before Sunshine kicks in to try to get people to understand that, like, look, if we’re not going to get it for C-band, then we’re not going to get it for C-band. But don’t make it so we can’t even talk about this, or we have to like climb this big mountain in order to talk about it in the next auction. Because ⁓ this is a concept that is important and makes a difference in people’s lives.

And there’s practically no cost to the industry ⁓ to do it. And and so, you know, it seems to be that Chairman Carr is really opposed to this and and has been him and his staff seem to be really ⁓ out to get rid of it. I don’t know. I’m ⁓ that’s the impression I get. I don’t follow it as closely as other folks do, but ⁓ but I guess it’s just one of these things that like we haven’t seen a good reason. There’s not even a lot of people lobbying against it, from what we can tell. But it seems like Chairman Carr just really does not want to see this happen and

Matthew Rantanen (17:53)
Yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (18:13)
⁓ and so we saw a preview of the rules and we’re hoping that those rules will change before they get voted on next week.

Matthew Rantanen (18:22)
Yeah, I mean we we’ve done all the our due diligence and spoken to all the commissioners, the chairman, and ⁓ you know, we we feel like there’s been some pushback. There’s been some misunderstanding of the amount of tribal projects that are actually taking place. I think the chairman’s office was a little surprised to know that there’s almost 200 tribal networks in play. ⁓ and you know, there’s things like that. I think they do have some support from industry. ⁓ in former chairman Pai ⁓ at CTIA, and that’s a problem that, you know.

Christopher Mitchell (18:50)
Right. So the

the former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission is now running the biggest wireless lobby for the the the ⁓ AT&T, T-Mobile, and ⁓ the other one, Verizon. And so ⁓ it’s it’s a little bit frustrating when you see this revolving door in action because it’s like we’re like, we should use the rules of Chairman Pai. And he’s like, No, we should not. So it’s a little bit hard.

Matthew Rantanen (19:13)
Yeah. No, we should eliminate those rules and make them

no rule for you. Yeah. So today we learned like Michael Calabrese shared that, you know, these folks are fighting for upper sea band as if it’s, you know, treasure and gold. And the lower C-band that they want in auction has still not been put into use. And it’s been years. So, you know, what are they actually doing? Are they warehousing spectrum? Are they intending to hoard it?

You know, why why why obtain it if you’re not gonna use it? Why obtain it over tribal lands where you’re never gonna use it? Why not let these ⁓ networks exist? and

Christopher Mitchell (19:52)
These are Wall Street

games. I mean, this is the answer to the question I think. And it’s not the only answer. There’s different answers. But I think this is something I’ve it’s taken me a while to get my head around. I think it’s important that people think about it, which is why do they do this? They do this because of the scarcity ⁓ mentality in Wall Street, which is to say that AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile have a value on Wall Street. And that value is higher the more spectrum that they control. Even if they don’t use it.

Because that means no one else can compete with them. And so when you’re talking about warehousing in Matt, there’s this implication of like for them, it is worth it to pay a billion dollars for something they are not going to use because it actually makes them worth more than a billion dollars ⁓ of extra, of extra value, basically. And so this is like the perverted logic, though, that we have on Wall Street with around monopoly power. And so they actually have very sound financial reasons for wanting to control all this.

Government is supposed to make rules that don’t encourage this sort of a thing because we have collateral damage in the form of these tribes now who can’t have access to the spectrum that they could use to lower the cost of building networks. And it actually even impacts the taxpayers because we are putting a lot of taxpayer dollars. We’ve put a few billion dollars into connecting people on tribal lands and it’s worth it. And I think it’s really important. And we need to do it the best technology possible.

But frankly, if we make more wireless available, we will need less fiber optic investment. We can do a lot more. And I’ve always said this, people don’t appreciate this. My criticism of wireless is always based on the fact that we’re not allowed to use a lot of the spectrum. We are very limited in the quality, the reliability, and the bandwidth of wireless signals, not because wireless sucks, but because we have not designed developed a way to share it and use it in ways where we can have access to choice spectrum.

Get people connected. And so we pay more in taxpayer dollars ultimately in order to raise the value of AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile in this whole weird game. And that if we had proper government policy, we wouldn’t be in this weird circle. But that seems to be where we are right now.

Matthew Rantanen (21:58)
Yeah, absolutely. And ⁓ you know, tribes some tribes are suited to be in this game. ⁓ some tribes are economically stable to the point where they have actually competed with these auctions. But ⁓ you know, it’s it’s out of five hundred and seventy six federally recognized nations, there’s maybe six that have attended these auctions and been part of these auctions and even maybe even one spectrum. So it’s you know, it’s outside the realm of possibility without some other solution and

The tribal priority window or the tribal licensing window as it is now called is a mechanism that has worked and would still work and continue to work and you know, we just don’t understand why it it’s they’re gunning for it, why they’re trying to eliminate it completely.

Christopher Mitchell (22:43)
You’re just playing with the microphone there as you’re talking. ⁓ In case you didn’t know where it was, that’s where it is. So so it’s important for people to understand that even though sunshine is kicking in for the Federal Communications Commission, there’s plenty of time to talk to your elected representatives, to talk to senators in particular. I mean, especially if you’re in Nebraska, if you’re in South Dakota. there are the the some senators are more interested in this than others.

Matthew Rantanen (22:45)
was that the mic? Sorry.

Weird.

Christopher Mitchell (23:09)
And ⁓ and you can always reach out to us or Harold Feld to figure out how to plug in. We’re always trying to help people out. We just at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, we just released a fact sheet that you can share ⁓ with senators to to push them because they can always they can they you know they I think of it as like they can nudge the FCC to do the right thing, they can shove the FCC to do the right thing, and they can demand that the FCC do the right thing here. I mean, we’ve we have a tribal licensing window based on a bunch of

precedents and things like that, but it could be put into law. Like we can we could do more ⁓ on this to make sure it really happens. But right now we just don’t want to miss this opportunity on on this spectrum if we can avoid it.

Matthew Rantanen (23:50)
Yeah. But will they? You know, that’s the real question is will they s take a stand? Will they actually ⁓ draw a line in the sand where they’re gonna say that like, hey, we are gonna support this and that’s the problem. I don’t know that we have enough support ⁓ on the Hill ⁓ and in some of these ⁓ departments of the US government during this administration to be able to pull this off. So how do we how do we create a stop gap so that we don’t, you know, end up with nothing forever? ⁓ and and that’s the problem.

Christopher Mitchell (24:20)
So I think the last thing that I’d just like to touch on with this is that sense of like there’s 200 tribes that are out there building. well, I shouldn’t say that way. So by our numbers, by ⁓ primarily the work of Jess on on the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s ⁓ team that works on this, ⁓ you know, we we think there are 90 networks in operation, 90 tribal networks in operation. I believe, and I could get these numbers mixed up, I believe there’s 50 that are in the process of building but haven’t turned on yet. And there are another 60.

that we think are they’re evaluating it and are likely to move forward. So that’s a lot. And ⁓ and I just I feel like Matt, if you just want to say a couple words about about this, this pretty remarkable movement in a pretty short period of time.

Matthew Rantanen (25:04)
Yeah, I mean, you know, you and I have talked about this for years, but ⁓ over the last four ⁓ five years and really over the last four and a half years, you’ve asked me the question, you know, like where are we gonna be in five years? Where are we gonna be in ten years? Kind of a thing. And and and with the funding that was available through ⁓ the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program, ⁓ through NTIA and such, you know, we saw a big influx of cash go directly to tribes for the first time, and we saw an actual investment in Indian country and and you know it

I was very hopeful that we would see ⁓ you know, a number of tribes building and and I think the pace that we are seeing that develop is is quite dramatic. ⁓ it is a it is a paradigm shift in the space. However, we are also seeing the end of a cycle of funding, the end of, you know, sort of an openness to support these types of things ⁓ in the in the country at the moment. And, you know, where will the next wave come from? So we’re hopeful that.

The tribes that are building networks, that are getting ⁓ expertise in this space, that are growing their businesses, will be able to support other tribes that are trying to step into that space. And then we’ll just need to figure out where the dollars come from moving forward. But we are definitely further along ⁓ in a very positive fashion compared to where we were when we’ve been, you know, the last 25 years, there was 19 total ⁓ for the 20 of them. And all of a sudden, here we go. So it’s it’s been pretty dramatic.

Christopher Mitchell (26:33)
So then the other thing is you spent a lot of your life worrying about wireless and trying to to make it work before you ⁓ you rose above it all and ⁓ Paul Miranda took it over for you. what do you think like we’ve paused in terms of like the the excitement around like CBRS and like sharing spectrum? Because like I mean it’s been what 10 years since the PCAST report came out, I think, ⁓ talking about this and ⁓ and I just think like

Matthew Rantanen (26:43)
Yes. That’s what we

Christopher Mitchell (27:01)
We’re talking about the tribal licensing window and that’s important, but like it wouldn’t solve the problem. I mean, it certainly doesn’t solve all problems. It would be terrific for tribal nations, but it doesn’t get to the other issue, which is for anyone to be able to have better access to wireless technology that is not being used around them. I feel like the industry, like the big the big wireless companies have done a pretty good job of making sure that we don’t move forward technologically with smart radios. And I I don’t know if you’ve thought about that much.

Matthew Rantanen (27:30)
Yeah, it it’s all about proprietary use of the spectrum, not smart radio shared use of the spectrum. It is it is very much ⁓ you know, my network, not our network. And and I feel like ⁓ the FCC has been very stagnant in the rollout of spectrum in general, not necessarily just the tribes, but in general, and it’s really reducing the amount of innovation in the wireless space. I mean, there there is some

you know a lot of activity in the free space optical, which is not radio wave spectrum, it’s light spectrum and ⁓ and it’s not maintained the same way. But, you know, I I don’t think we have a lot

Christopher Mitchell (28:06)
It’s really just Tarana.

I I mean like you I the only thing I feel like if someone was arguing with you, I think you might say, Well, Tarana’s been really innovative. Okay, well like them and who. I I don’t I’m not in this space totally, so I don’t know, but it

Matthew Rantanen (28:15)
Right. No, and

and Tarana is a great example of a great technology and change in technology and use of technology that is unfortunately fairly unaffordable for tribes to participate unless they get, you know, industry level or commercial level funding to support it. The other problem with ⁓ the the wonderful technology of of folks like Tarana is it’s ⁓ it’s power hungry and a lot of the tribes are off grid. So we you know, there’s a whole nother tangent.

dynamic that we must explain to go down that path. But you know, without without competition, without innovation, without new spectrum coming on board for new innovation in product, in, you know, technological products to move data around, I I think we’ve been fairly stagnant for a decade. And I’d like to see that open up. ⁓ it

Christopher Mitchell (29:04)
Right. It’s not because

it’s it’s not because the technology’s not there, right? It’s because we’ve chosen not to allow it to happen.

Matthew Rantanen (29:12)
Right. ⁓ I mean the tech is there and even in the bands that are we’re talking about coming into auction and coming into play where we could ⁓ you know, get access to the next round of spectrum, some of it doesn’t have a product available yet, but it doesn’t mean that industry isn’t at the edge of its seat waiting to build a product for it or adjust an existing product to be able to incorporate it. So, you know, I I I feel like we’ve been sitting still for too long and it’s time to shuffle the deck.

Christopher Mitchell (29:40)
Yeah, I think it’s time to see ⁓ the Federal Communications Commission actually be reinvented. I you know, I think I’m I think I’m ready for it.

Matthew Rantanen (29:48)
Yeah.

Yeah, especially especially as it stands now. It is it’s ⁓ it’s not not creative, it’s not innovative, it’s it’s barely even doing the job it’s tasked to do. So yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (30:01)
I mean, I would say

that like since you and I have been working together for twenty years, I don’t think we’ve had a chair that we both think has done a good job.

Matthew Rantanen (30:08)
No, and even some of the chairs that were temporary that we thought were gonna do j a good job were sort of handcuffed during an interim period and weren’t able to pull the trigger on a lot of real activity that could have made, you know, really change the game. ⁓ so yeah, it’s been it’s been fairly frustrating for a for a number of decades now. And you know, that may just be government, but I feel like we’re headed down a path that isn’t necessarily ⁓ level. It’s going downhill.

Christopher Mitchell (30:37)
Yeah. So this is a good time for people to plug in. ⁓ we can make a difference over time. But like this stuff doesn’t just happen. We need people to step up, get involved, inform themselves, get inspired, and ⁓ you know, if nothing else, ⁓ support us with some some funds. Whether it’s Waskawiwin, the Institute for Local Self Reliance, Public Knowledge, you know, we’re doing this with with shoestrings. And so, ⁓ anything that you can do to help out along these lines. there’s not a lot of us out there waging these wars, it feels like.

Matthew Rantanen (31:06)
That’s right. more allies the better. I, you know, I I’ve been on three calls in the last four days with the FCC and surprisingly we had almost 20 people on one of the calls. That’s probably the most people I’ve seen on a call in eight years. ⁓ so you know, that was encouraging. we do have some new people involved, but at a time where, you know, we need to stack the deck because we certainly are up against it.

Christopher Mitchell (31:31)
Yeah. Thank you so much, Matt.

Matthew Rantanen (31:33)
Yeah, man. Great to be here.

Jordan Pittman (31:36)
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Unbuffered Podcast. We have transcripts for this and other episodes available at ILSR.org/podcast. While you’re there, check out our other podcasts from ILSR, including Building Local Power, Local Energy Rules, and the Composting for Community Podcasts. Email us at [email protected] with your ideas for the show. Follow us on Bluesky. Our handle is @communitynets.

You can catch the latest research from all of our initiatives by subscribing to our monthly newsletter at ILSR.org While you’re there, please take a moment to donate. Your support in any amount helps keep us going. Unbuffered is produced by Christopher Mitchell with editing provided by me, Jordan Pittman. Until next time, thanks for listening.

• Community Networks Homepage
• Unbuffered Podcast
• ILSR’s Tribal Broadband Efforts
• Community Broadband Bits Podcast (Formerly)