Rebecca Grant, Ph.D.
In these tight budget times, some members of the U.S. Senate would dearly love to raise $100 billion for the U.S. Treasury by auctioning off portions of the broadcast spectrum where military radars operate.
There’s just one problem: no analysis has yet proven that the new auction of the spectrum, known as lower S-band, won’t impair vital military systems, now and into the future. Done wrong, an auction could disable some of America’s most advanced capabilities. President Donald J. Trump’s “Golden Dome” initiative might be affected, along with numerous other systems.
The electromagnetic spectrum is vital real estate for keeping America safe from missile attacks. As Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said at hearings last month, “If we lose the spectrum war, we lose the war.”
To recap, the risk comes from a potential spectrum auction that would clear or compress a specific area of spectrum known as S-band. Specifically, putting the 3.1 to 3.5 gigahertz band on the chopping block could be disastrous because vital military radars operate in that exact frequency range.
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