FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel gave a speech at the MWC trade show in Barcelona today where she announced that the FCC will start Auction 108 for 2.5 GHz mid-band spectrum in July of this year. This is the same band 41 that T-Mobile currently uses. But much of that band remains unclaimed. 2.5 GHz frequencies are well-suited to 5G deployment and therefore in great demand. So the FCC will auction off the unclaimed bits this year. The band was originally divided into small, oddly-defined blocks that aren't ideal for 5G. So the FCC is repackaging the spectrum into larger ~50 MHz "channels" that will work better for fast 5G service.


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