STATEMENT OF COMMISSIONER BRENDAN CARR Re: Facilitating Shared Use in the 3100-3550 MHz Band, WT Docket No. 19-348 A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of being in Defiance, Ohio with its representative, Congressman Bob Latta. Congressman Latta invited me out to see live 5G in a rural part of his district. A local WISP there was experiencing a surge in Internet traffic as parents and kids stayed home to work and learn through the pandemic. Using mid-band spectrum and 5G radios, the provider expanded coverage, increased capacity, and even gave school kids free Wi-Fi access. Defiance was showcasing one of the leading services in 5G’s first wave: in-home broadband. In fact, the first 5G customers in the world were a Houston couple who accessed one provider’s millimeter wave 5G to power a gigabit home connection. The high speeds and low latency of millimeter wave 5G make it a competitor to even fiber connections. And I can tell you from my travels that giving families another choice for in-home broadband is wildly popular. 5G isn’t limited to high-band in-home service, of course. By the end of the year, all three national carriers will have turned on low-band 5G across much of the country. That will give us 5G nearly everywhere and elevate what our phones and hotspots can do whether from a skyscraper or a country road. Mid-band will give us capabilities and coverage in between. Anticipation of this flavor of 5G has been building for quite some time now. This reflects the long runway that it takes to get a new technology off the ground. For an example of that, look no further than this item. More than two years ago in the MOBILE NOW Act, Congress instructed NTIA and the Commission to study freeing up the lower 3 GHz for commercial use. Our examination showed that the upper 100 MHz of that spectrum were most ready for 5G, and today we begin the process of moving the band towards fairly clear, flexible use. Because of the actions this Commission has taken in mid-band in particular, 5G anticipation will be over for millions of Americans in a matter of weeks. If the online reports are true—and I’m just reading the online reports, not breaking any news here—Apple may announce its first 5G iPhone next month. That would mean that before the holidays, millions of Americans finally may have a phone in their hands that runs on 5G. Providers have been building full-tilt in anticipation of this great shift to 5G. And with any luck, a great number of people will get to see hundreds of megabits per second on the move for themselves. This could kick off a virtuous cycle of upgraded handsets that feed demand for new apps and use cases that feeds investment in more network upgrades that feeds the cycle again. Even as mid-band 5G takes off in the coming weeks, there’s much more runway for us to keep building at the Commission. Americans’ demand for data never stops, and wireless companies will need a steady supply of fresh spectrum to serve their customers. That’s why the day-in, day-out work of the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau and all of the Commission’s staff is so important and deserves our thanks. Their work and this item have my support.