STATEMENT OF
COMMISSIONER AJIT PAI
Re: Revision of Part 15 of the Commission’s Rules to Permit Unlicensed National Information 
Infrastructure (U-NII) Devices in the 5 GHz Band, ET Docket No. 13-49.
Today’s Order is a win for rural America.  Consumers who live in some of the most remote and 
difficult to serve portions of the country rely on wireless Internet service providers (WISPs) for their on-
ramp to the Internet.  Without the relief the Commission provides today, many of those providers would 
have been unable to continue to serve their communities.  Indeed, Wave Wireless, a WISP that serves 
southeast Kansas, where I grew up, told the Commission that without a rule change it would be 
“impossible for us to continue to provide affordable, high performance broadband service in many of 
these areas.”
1
The reason?  Nearly two years ago, the FCC changed the emissions limits that apply to a portion 
of the 5 GHz band that nearly every WISP relies on to serve their rural communities.  If the rule changes 
had kicked in, many WISPs would not have been able to operate at the power levels necessary to reach 
their existing customers.  Rural Americans who enjoy high-speed Internet access today would have been 
unable to do so tomorrow.  So I am glad that industry stakeholders were able to a reach consensus 
solution and that FCC staff worked diligently to move this process forward.
I hope that we are able to build on this success by moving quickly to open up another 195 MHz of 
the 5 GHz band for the next-generation of wireless uses.  Consumers in rural America—and throughout 
the United States—have waited long enough.
                                                          
1
Letter from Galen Manners, President, Wave Wireless, to Marlene H. Dortch, FCC Secretary, ET Docket No. 13-
49 (filed July 22, 2014).