Skip to main content
CivicGate

S 5333
Introduced Re-checks Congress.gov for new actions and updates the bill's status, and fills in any sponsors, committees, or related bills that are missing. It does not re-pull sponsors/cosponsors/committees/related — those rarely change — and it skips all work if nothing has changed upstream, so it's cheap to click.

Advancing American Wi-Fi Against Foreign Adversaries Act

To require the Secretary of Commerce, acting through the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information, to develop a plan for how the United States will advance and advocate for Wi-Fi and other unlicensed technologies, and for other purposes.

Introduced Aug 6, 2026

Latest action (Aug 6, 2026) Read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

Issues
Foreign Policy

Summary

  • Requires the Secretary of Commerce to develop a plan on how the United States will advance and advocate for global adoption of Wi-Fi and unlicensed spectrum technologies, in coordination with federal agencies including State, Defense, FCC, and Intelligence
  • Requires the plan to be submitted to Congress within 180 days of enactment and made publicly available on the National Telecommunications and Information Administration website
  • Requires the plan to include strategies to promote global harmonization of the 5925-7125 megahertz spectrum band for Wi-Fi and unlicensed technologies
  • Requires the plan to include assessment of and strategies to counter efforts by foreign adversaries, including China, to undermine unlicensed and Wi-Fi technologies
  • Requires the Commerce Department to seek public comment when developing the plan
  • Requires the Assistant Secretary to submit an implementation report to Congress within 90 days after the World Radiocommunication Conference in 2027 concludes

AI-generated plain-language summary of the bill text — neutral, and may be imperfect. See the full text below for the exact wording.

Sponsor (1)

Actions (2)

  1. Aug 6, 2026 Read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. · senate
  2. Aug 6, 2026 Introduced in Senate

Text versions (1)

  • Introduced in Senate · Aug 6, 2026

Only one text version is on file, so there’s no earlier version to compare against yet.

Full text

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

August 6, 2026

Ms. Rosen (for herself and Mr. Ricketts) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation

A BILL

To require the Secretary of Commerce, acting through the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information, to develop a plan for how the United States will advance and advocate for Wi-Fi and other unlicensed technologies, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the “Advancing American Wi-Fi Against Foreign Adversaries Act”.

SEC. 2. SENSE OF CONGRESS.

It is the sense of Congress that—

(1) the leadership of the United States with respect to Wi- Fi, 6G, and satellite technologies is a national priority;

(2) the United States is the birthplace of Wi-Fi technology and home to the world’s leading developers, manufacturers, and innovators with respect to unlicensed spectrum;

(3) Wi-Fi contributes more than $1,000,000,000,000 annually to the economy of the United States, and is estimated to contribute $2,400,000,000,000 in 2027, which helps to enable commercial activity, the provision of education and health care, and the maintenance of public safety;

(4) maintaining and advocating for a global system that supports Wi-Fi technology is essential to continuing the leadership of the United States in advanced technologies and building networks of trusted telecommunications infrastructure;

(5) strategic and unified engagement at, and leading up to, the World Radiocommunication Conferences of the International Telecommunication Union is critical to—

(A) advance the spectrum priorities of the United States; and

(B) counter actions from adversaries that seek to upend the leadership of the United States;

(6) adversaries, such as the People’s Republic of China, have pushed for spectrum policies at World Radiocommunication Conferences and in other fora that seek to reverse the global momentum made with respect to Wi-Fi technology, with the aim of forcing reliance on untrusted, foreign-controlled infrastructure;

(7) because the World Radiocommunication Conference in 2027 will be held in Shanghai, China, coordination between key Federal agencies is essential to creating a unified strategy and building a coalition of countries allied on spectrum priorities and countering adverse action by the People’s Republic of China; and

(8) it is critical for the success of the United States at the World Radiocommunication Conference in 2027 to—

(A) achieve timely decisions on national technology and spectrum priorities;

(B) appoint a head of delegation as swiftly as possible to support the positions of the United States; and

(C) actively engage allies and potential allies to build support for the stated spectrum priorities of the United States.

SEC. 3. PLAN FOR ADVANCEMENT OF UNLICENSED TECHNOLOGIES.

(a) Definitions.—In this section:

(1) Appropriate congressional committees.—The term “appropriate congressional committees” means—

(A) the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation of the Senate;

(B) the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate;

(C) the Committee on Energy and Commerce of the House of Representatives; and

(D) the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives.

(2) Assistant secretary.—The term “Assistant Secretary” means the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information.

(3) Commission.—The term “Commission” means the Federal Communications Commission.

(4) Plan.—The term “Plan” means the plan described in subsection (b).

(5) Unlicensed.—The term “unlicensed” means, with respect to technology, that the technology may be operated without an individual license, as provided in part 15 of title 47, Code of Federal Regulations, or any successor regulations.

(6) Wi-fi technology.—The term “Wi-Fi technology”—

(A) means wireless local area networking technology that is—

(i) commonly known as “Wi-Fi”; and

(ii) based on Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers standards 802.11, or any successor standards; and

(B) includes the spectrum access and regulatory frameworks that enable the technology described in subparagraph (A).

(7) WRC-27.—The term “WRC-27” means the International Telecommunication Union World Radiocommunication Conference scheduled to take place in Shanghai, China, from October 11 to November 12, 2027.

(b) Plan.—

(1) In general.—Not later than 180 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Commerce, acting through the Assistant Secretary, in coordination with the Commission, the Secretary of State, the United States Trade Representative, the Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade, the Secretary of Defense, the Director of National Intelligence, and the heads of other relevant Federal agencies, shall develop, submit to the appropriate congressional committees, and make publicly available on the website of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration a plan describing how the United States will advance, and advocate for, the global adoption of Wi-Fi technologies, unlicensed technologies, and spectrum allocations for unlicensed technologies, including at WRC-27, through, among other actions, promoting global harmonization of the band of electromagnetic spectrum from 5925 megahertz to 7125 megahertz for the use of Wi-Fi technologies and unlicensed technologies.

(2) Public input.—The Assistant Secretary shall—

(A) seek public comment in developing the Plan; and

(B) consider comments received pursuant to subparagraph (A) when finalizing the Plan.

(3) Required contents.—The Plan shall include an assessment of, and strategies to counter, efforts by the Chinese Communist Party, representatives of the Government of the People’s Republic of China, and representatives of other governments that are adversaries of the United States to undermine unlicensed technologies and Wi-Fi technologies.

(c) Report on Implementation.—Not later than 90 days after the date on which WRC-27 concludes, the Assistant Secretary shall submit to the appropriate congressional committees a report describing the implementation of the Plan, which shall—

(1) to the extent possible, include a mechanism to track the progress of the implementation of the Plan; and

(2) be submitted in an unclassified form, but may include a classified annex.

(d) Rule of Construction.—Nothing in this section may be construed to require the disclosure of classified information, information that is subject to privilege, or proprietary or trade secret information. <all>

Comments

Comments

Loading comments…