Spectrum Mobile serves 12.5 million lines and Comcast's Xfinity Mobile has passed 10 million — a combined 22.5 million Wi-Fi-powered customers that analysts now describe as something close to a fourth national carrier. That figure comes from Matthew Kandrach, president of Consumer Action for a Strong Economy (CASE), in an opinion piece written exclusively for Broadband Breakfast. His argument is blunt: the most disruptive force in American wireless competition came from Wi-Fi, not from another exclusive-use spectrum auction.

For years, Kandrach writes, Washington has heard the same pitch from the largest carriers: auction more spectrum and competition will follow. Cable's entry into mobile service broke into a market long controlled by three national players. It forced incumbents to compete harder and gave families lower-cost alternatives.

How the cable model actually works

Cable's mobile offer pairs nationwide cellular coverage with the Wi-Fi networks Americans already use all day. Eighty to ninety percent of smartphone data now travels over Wi-Fi. By routing most traffic onto Wi-Fi instead of purchased cellular capacity, cable providers keep network costs down — and those savings show up in plans that cut family bills by $1,000 or more each year, according to Kandrach.

The industry points to falling prices as proof that an auction-centered policy works. Wireless service prices fell 4.3% in the year ending June 2026, even as demand for data and speed climbed. Kandrach calls that argument incomplete. Prices fell because new competitors showed up who could compete on cost, not because incumbents slashed prices in a sudden act of generosity. Crediting auctions while ignoring the 22.5 million Wi-Fi-powered customers behind the decline, he writes, "isn't a serious account of the market."

What did the 6 GHz decision change?

The regulatory pivot came in 2020, when the FCC — under the first Trump administration — opened the 6 GHz band for unlicensed use. That gave next-generation Wi-Fi the wide channels it needed for greater capacity, speed and reliability. Just as important, Kandrach argues, the decision removed the enormous entry cost into cellular service that exclusive licenses impose.

The market responded. Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 routers moved from promises to reality in homes and businesses nationwide, handing cable providers a stronger platform for mobile competition. Today, companies use the 6 GHz band to extend connectivity beyond the home, making service seamless as customers move between indoor Wi-Fi, outdoor Wi-Fi and cellular coverage.

Unlicensed spectrum delivers something an exclusive-license-only strategy cannot: low barriers to entry. The band lets companies that could never afford a nationwide portfolio of licenses compete anyway — with a better product or a sharper fix for a local problem. That, Kandrach writes, is how innovation spreads and how prices fall.

Are auctions finished?

Not quite, and Kandrach doesn't claim they are. Exclusive licenses support large-scale investment and give some operators the certainty needed to commit capital. But auctions are a tool, not a strategy. Treat them as the only path for spectrum use, he warns, and the market gets shaped around the companies already large enough to win them.

His preferred policy makes room for both: licensed spectrum for wide-area cellular networks, and unlicensed spectrum for the Wi-Fi that carries most smartphone data and enables lower-cost mobile competition.

What happens next in Washington?

The previous administration's National Spectrum Strategy identified thousands of megahertz for further study. Kandrach is unimpressed: studies and distant timelines are not a pipeline around which innovators can build. Worse, he argues, the call for studies fueled renewed pressure to convert productive Wi-Fi bands to exclusive licensed use — a step he says would narrow the field, entrench the largest incumbents and put significant consumer gains at risk.

The current administration, in his view, has an opening to build on one of the first Trump administration's clearest tech policy successes: protect the full 6 GHz band, identify new unlicensed and shared-access opportunities, and reserve auctions for cases where exclusive licensing genuinely serves the public interest.

Kandrach's verdict is compact. The first Trump administration delivered a balanced spectrum strategy; the market answered with more competitors and lower prices for American families. The job now, he writes, is to protect that record — before the study pipeline turns into a licensed land grab.

Note: this is a commentary piece. The views expressed are the author's and don't necessarily reflect those of Broadband Breakfast and Breakfast Media LLC.