T-Mobile has spent several years and lots of resources in building out its 5G network, to be used by the best phones around. And for the most part, it has been smooth sailing, at least on the regulatory part. The carrier actively participates in spectrum auctions held by the FCC in order to get the rights to transmit signals over specific bands. The FCC has held over a hundred such auctions since 1994, shaping out the wireless landscape in the US. Recently, though, the FCC's authority to auction these licenses, first granted by the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 and extended several times over the course of the past 30 years, expired, and Congress has yet to renew it. Now, T-Mobile is pushing Congress to act.

T-Mobile has issued a public statement, calling on Congress to renew the FCC's authority to conduct spectrum auctions and grant spectrum licenses to companies. T-Mobile recently won Auction 108, the last auction the FCC conducted before losing its authority on this matter, with T-Mobile putting the winning bid at $300 million and earning the right to expand its network in hundreds of counties across the country — with the licenses being especially important for coverage in rural areas.

However, before the FCC could issue a license for T-Mobile to operate on the newly auctioned frequency, Congress allowed its authority to lapse. So now, T-Mobile is expressing concern not only for the future of spectrum auctions, but also because this issue has driven the bands it purchased in Auction 109 into regulatory limbo, with the FCC being seemingly unable to actually grant licensure.

Luckily, it's an issue that Congress is aware of. There were a few law proposals in the table since last year, with one of them (the Spectrum Innovation Act of 2022) passing the House of Representatives on July 27, 2022. However, nothing has been passed into law just yet.

The FCC can issue a Special Temporary Authority, or STA, to T-Mobile to begin using this spectrum while this limbo clears, but the ideal scenario would be for the FCC to recover its authority. And that can't happen until Congress steps in.