A mobile phone may use a wireless carrier’s network and connect through a cable provider’s broadband service via Wi-Fi in a home. Consumers might not notice the distinction, but it matters for how policymakers define broadband competition in regulation. Decisions about spectrum and network deployment impact which providers can compete, as well as whether unserved communities can get connected. These networks also connect consumers to AI tools and data centers, bringing broadband providers into the debates over how these facilities are regulated.

Sam Love joins us for an episode of Explain to Shane. He is chief policy and strategy officer at NCTA—The Internet & Television Association. Previously, he co-chaired Invariant’s technology and competition government relations practice and served as a senior policy advisor to then-Senator Cory Gardner, managing the senator’s work on the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee.

Below is a lightly edited and abridged transcript of our discussion. You can listen to this and other episodes of Explain to Shane on AEI.org and subscribe via your preferred listening platform. If you enjoyed this episode, leave us a review, and tell your friends and colleagues to tune in.

Shane Tews: The boundaries between cable broadband and wireless service are blurring. What does that mean for the industry and its customers?

Sam Love: It’s an ever-changing and exciting time to be in the historic cable industry. I think you’re right to say the line is blurring. Maybe the line doesn’t even exist anymore. Consumers increasingly just want devices that work, whether they’re connected through cable, fiber, fixed wireless, or even satellite. What matters to them is reliable, seamless connectivity. That’s where we’ve been focused.

AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon are moving into the space we’ve traditionally been in: at-home broadband. They’re offering competitive fixed wireless products. Meanwhile, the cable industry is moving into the wireless game. Collectively, our industry is now the fourth-largest mobile carrier in the country.

It’s no longer just about cable for us. It’s really about connectivity, and it’s about connectivity for all of us. That’s what you’re seeing as the landscape shifts and those traditional lines evaporate.

With BEAD funding, Are we making progress in connecting rural communities, and what would help providers finish the job?

I think we are. I’m from rural Colorado, a little town called Meeker in the far northwestern part of the state. It has about 2,500 people, and it’s a 45-minute drive to the next town. One of our members at NCTA actually serves my hometown with gigabit service to the home.

Unfortunately, on the fixed wireless side, none of the carriers are there yet with 5G. A lot of rural areas have been left behind in the 5G conversation. Our wireline providers are trying to build out in those areas, and the BEAD program has been pretty critical on that front.

For us, the focus has primarily been on unserved communities, making sure we’re not gold plating networks or going over places where service is already robust. Filling those gaps is a key piece of what we’re trying to do. The traditional wireless carriers are expanding coverage, too. The number of places that remain unserved is declining, and BEAD is helping get folks a lot of the way there. We still have work ahead of us, but progress is being made.

Companies have invested in C-band under one set of plans, and now technology and demand are changing. How should policymakers handle that transition?

In addition to our operator members, we represent programmers, many of whom have significant resources and assets in C-band. Protecting those incumbents is really important. From our perspective, we could have dealt with a little more time on the transition.

More broadly, with the continued appetite for licensed spectrum, we’re focused on ensuring that unlicensed and shared spectrum opportunities are not being left on the table. We’re coming up on WRC-27 next year. We’ve set aside all 1,200 megahertz of the 6 GHz band for Wi-Fi and unlicensed use in the United States. It’s been a significant success, with record deployment of devices.

The challenge is also what countries like China and their state companies like Huawei want to do to US leadership globally. Huawei is the biggest proponent worldwide of carving up the 6 GHz band and providing at least the upper portion to wireless carriers. It would be a huge mistake for the US to take that route. We’re super thrilled that the first Trump administration took a different approach. Wi-Fi is an American innovation. I think command and control may work in Beijing, but it does not work well here in the land of permissionless innovation.

Spectrum decisions can shape the hardware market for the next decade. When suppliers choose the lowest-cost equipment, who benefits, and what does that mean for American companies?

I’m getting a little farther afield from our members’ day-to-day work. But from my personal experience, Huawei, Ericsson, and Nokia are the three primary global providers of telecom network equipment, with Samsung involved to a smaller extent. If those providers have an opportunity to build out in the upper 6 GHz band, one of those three companies most likely benefits. None is American.

Huawei is almost always undercutting Ericsson and Nokia, with significant government funding that can win it contracts. We’ve seen the risk here with rip and replace, getting rid of Chinese equipment that rural carriers relied on because the cost was lower.

I think policymakers have to remember that a win for Huawei or for the licensed community globally is almost never a win for US companies. We may have reasons that’s okay in certain instances. But unlicensed spectrum and 6 GHz can be a real opportunity for companies like Broadcom, HPE, and Cisco. There’s a great American success story on the unlicensed side.

Data centers are a separate industry, but your members supply the connectivity. How are data center policies affecting broadband providers?

It’s absolutely impacting us. One concern is how statutory definitions of a data center could bring our facilities into restrictions, excise taxes, or other creative, horrible ideas people are putting together. We’re looking at that language and trying to ensure our facilities are not drawn into those measures.

Beyond those definitions, data centers have to connect to the internet. We’re the consumer face of what people see coming out of them. If you want to access your fantasy sports draft, you’re interacting with a data center whether you know it or not. If you use Claude to plan your next trip to Europe, you’re making use of data centers.

As much as people talk about energy and power, there’s a communications aspect as well. We’re a critical piece of that broader data center and AI conversation.

What are NCTA’s priorities for 2027?

I think WRC is going to be a big focus. Talking about the benefits Americans are getting from Wi-Fi is going to be key. Affordability is a big piece. If you’re a family of four and everyone has a tablet at home, they’re using their at-home internet connection and Wi-Fi. They’re not using individual mobile subscriptions on each tablet, which would raise significant costs or make it more difficult for that family to connect.

About 90 percent of all mobile data is offloaded onto Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi really is the workhorse of US communications infrastructure. People often forget about it because it’s on and it’s working. The 2.4 and 5 GHz bands are important, but we’re continuing to see capacity constraints there, and 6 GHz is helping.

And then on AI, we’ve rolled out an AI policy plan looking at where communications and AI intersect. One pillar is a national conversation about AI and what it means for people. The polling on data centers shows support drops off when people understand that the facilities would be used for AI. There’s a gap from a policymaker perspective in educating people about what this means and what it will mean for them.

As we go into WRC-27, policymakers should be mindful that China has succeeded in using these international forums to advance its preferred policy priorities. I think 6 GHz is not specifically at issue at WRC. However, we do think there could be conversations around it. It was put in a footnote during the last WRC.

Wi-Fi’s American. We want to continue that American success story and stick on the American road.