Policymakers will have what CTIA President and CEO Meredith Attwell Baker called a “unique opportunity” to develop an implementation strategy that aligns with a recent presidential memorandum directing agencies to adopt a clear national spectrum policy.

Baker, the author behind the CTIA’s recent roadmap for American spectrum policy in 2024, used this year’s CTIA’s roadmap to point out that 2023 was the first year since 2016 that the United States did not hold a spectrum auction.

“Each year without an auction, or even an auction on the horizon, digs the U.S. deeper into a hole,” she wrote in the roadmap, which was published on CTIA’s website in the form of a blog post.

According to Baker, who has been CEO of the CTIA since 2014, both exponential growth with consumer use and the allocation of spectrum by nations overseas signals that the U.S. needs to act.

Over the next two months, Baker wrote that policymakers will develop an implementation plan for a national spectrum strategy.

She called it a chance to “reaffirm our commitment to the types of policies that made America the leader in wireless and the world’s innovation hub.”

In October, the president issued a memorandum that directed the National Telecommunications Information Administration (NTIA) to contribute to a spectrum strategy for the country.

Officially named the National Spectrum Strategy, the plan involves four pillars, according to the White House. The pillars include building “a spectrum pipeline” to maintain U.S. leadership in emerging technologies, fostering collaborative long-term planning to support the nation’s spectrum needs, advancing spectrum access and management through technology development, and growing awareness in the public about spectrum’s role in the U.S. economy.

Baker wrote that the implementation plan “must affirm (the) NTIA’s role as the government’s lead agency on spectrum policy and their leadership and management of future spectrum studies.”

She called President Joseph Biden’s development of a national spectrum strategy “a key building block” and said lower 3 GHz and 7/8 GHz are two of the strategy’s bands that “stand out and should be prioritized given their clear suitability for 5G services, global harmonization potential, and advantageous propagation characteristics.”

“The stark reality is that over the last two years we missed an opportunity to commercialize the lower 3 GHz in a manner that safeguards the military’s mission-critical functions,” Baker wrote.

Regarding 7/8 GHz, Baker said there is a risk of the U.S. becoming a “wireless technology island” and she called it the only remaining band where the U.S. has an opportunity for leadership with “5G-friendly” mid-band spectrum.

“The US already leads the world on unlicensed access–this is our opportunity to lead in both licensed and unlicensed, define an ecosystem, and ensure that wireless innovation is US-led for a generation to come.”