GSMA and 60 partners lobby for upper 6 GHz spectrum allocation

Securing this mid-band spectrum provides the necessary physical infrastructure to handle high-bandwidth video streaming and data-heavy applications in dense urban environments. For the streaming ecosystem, this transition from 5G-Advanced to 6G ensures that network capacity keeps pace with the increasing bitrate demands of next-generation content delivery. The move toward international harmonization also allows hardware manufacturers to achieve the scale required for a global equipment ecosystem, reducing deployment costs for operators. Watch for individual national regulatory decisions in the Americas and Asia Pacific to determine how quickly this capacity becomes commercially available for mobile networks.

The GSMA's campaign for upper 6 GHz allocation sits within a broader mid-band spectrum strategy that has been building momentum since the World Radiocommunication Conference 2023. At WRC-23 in Dubai, the International Telecommunication Union identified the 6.425-7.125 GHz band for mobile use in ITU Region 1 countries, but the band remains unallocated for mobile in the Americas and much of Asia Pacific. The GSMA has since worked to close that gap, with Vivek Badrinath, the organization's director general, stating at MWC 2025 that upper 6 GHz is the single most important mid-band decision facing regulators this decade. The 60-plus industry partners backing the current push include major equipment vendors and operators who see the band as essential for bridging the capacity gap between sub-6 GHz coverage layers and mmWave hotspots.

Regulatory resistance remains significant, particularly from Wi-Fi stakeholders who currently use the 6 GHz band for unlicensed access. The Federal Communications Commission in the United States allocated the entire 6 GHz band for unlicensed Wi-Fi use in 2020, and the Wi-Fi Alliance has argued that splitting the band would undermine the economics of Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 deployments. In Europe, the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations recommended in 2024 that the upper 6 GHz band be studied for both mobile and unlicensed use, leaving the final decision to individual national regulators. The GSMA counters that licensed mobile use in the upper portion can coexist with unlicensed Wi-Fi in the lower 6 GHz band, pointing to technical studies showing sufficient guard-band separation.

From a technical standpoint, the upper 6 GHz band offers channel bandwidths of up to 200 MHz, which Qualcomm demonstrated in 2024 using its Snapdragon X80 modem to achieve peak downlink speeds exceeding 10 Gbps in lab conditions. That throughput capacity is directly relevant to streaming infrastructure, as it would allow operators to deliver multi-gigabit mobile broadband without relying on mmWave's limited propagation characteristics. Ericsson's Mobility Report from November 2024 projected that global mobile data traffic would reach 330 exabytes per month by 2030, with mid-band spectrum identified as the primary workhorse for handling that growth in urban environments. The GSMA's argument rests on the premise that without upper 6 GHz, operators will face a capacity crunch in dense cities well before 6G standards are finalized around 2030. As the industry prepares for this shift, Verizon seeks FCC approval for 6G spectrum testing in Los Angeles to begin validating these high-capacity network models.