- A former FCC chair, Ajit Pai will be president and CEO of CTIA starting April 1
- He replaces Meredith Attwell Baker, who announced her retirement in December
- Analysts say Pai is the right choice to lead the wireless lobbyist organization
CTIA has a new leader and it’s someone who’s well versed in the ways of wireless in Washington, D.C.
Ajit Pai will take the helm on April 1. He’s a logical choice because CTIA needs someone who can work with President Trump and his VP right-hand man Elon Musk. Pai was President Trump’s pick for FCC chairman during his first term and Pai seemed to enjoy being in the company of the president.
Who can forget when Trump and Pai were flanked by a group of tower climbers when they delivered remarks about the need to win the 5G race in 2019? At first glance, it almost looked as if a contingent of the Village People were in their midst, which wouldn’t be entirely out of line given Trump’s penchant for the “YMCA” song.
Back to present day, Pai, as CEO of CTIA, will be charged with continuing its quest to get more spectrum for the commercial wireless industry, which has been eyeing the lower 3 GHz for years. The problem there is it’s occupied by the Department of Defense (DoD), and so far that’s proven elusive.
He faces other challenges as well. Generally, CTIA favors full-power, exclusively licensed spectrum and not dynamic spectrum sharing (DSS) or other forms of sharing, which increasingly appears to be the only option for a lot of encumbered spectrum bands. The FCC still needs to get its auction authority reinstated on a permanent basis – the AWS-3 auction is set to occur under a temporary auction authorization. And there’s the sensitive matter of Musk’s SpaceX wanting to share the upper C-band for satellite purposes rather than cede it to wireless carriers.
A coup for CTIA?
It bears noting that Pai made his share of enemies during his tenure as FCC chairman, especially when it came to net neutrality. But at CTIA, he's got a whole new gig. Given the state of the wireless industry today, Pai is the best person for the job, analysts say.
During Pai’s tenure at the FCC, the commission secured the most spectrum in history, noted industry analyst Chetan Sharma. Pai oversaw the 2020 C-band auction, which generated a record $80 billion in proceeds and secured an additional 280 MHz of mid-band spectrum for licensed wireless carriers.
For CTIA, “it was somewhat of a coup to get Chairman Pai,” Sharma told Fierce via email. “He is the perfect candidate for the job at this moment. The primary task of CTIA is spectrum and industry advocacy … He has been the most effective [FCC] chair in my opinion. Given that he intimately understands the process, closeness to the current administration, he is the dream candidate for CTIA. Some of us did expect him to be in the top running for the job.”
Industry analyst Roger Entner, founder of Recon Analytics, echoed that sentiment.
“Pai is great for this position as he knows all the players at industry – CTIA, NTIA and White House. Even when people disagree with him, they like him as a person, which goes a long way,” he said.
‘Natural choice’ for the time
“He knows how to advocate his points and has been pro-industry in his term as FCC chairman, getting the industry as much spectrum as possible,” Entner said. “Ajit is the natural choice in this time.”
Pai is replacing Meredith Attwell Baker, who served as CEO since 2014 and announced her retirement in December.
Blair Levin, policy analyst at New Street Research and a former chief of staff at the FCC, agreed that Pai is an “excellent choice” who knows the issues and players and projects well in public.
But heading CTIA is a very different job than Pai’s prior roles. “It is one thing to advocate for a position when you have three votes in your pocket, as he did as chair. It is another skill to advocate for a position when you have, as he will, the Department of Defense and Elon Musk, on the other side (on different issues.) Maybe he turns out to be great at it, but it is a different skill,” Levin said.
In addition, running a trade association is very different from running a government agency. CTIA’s Baker and NCTA President Michael Powell are examples of people who rose to the challenges in their transition from government to trade associations.
“I think Ajit has the core skills to get there, but one can't be certain. After all, Michael Jordan was as great as anyone ever was in basketball but couldn't hit even minor league pitching. Ajit is about to face some fastballs and curves he has not faced before. But he clearly was the No. 1 pick in the draft,” Levin concluded.
As for his part, Pai took to Musk’s social media platform X to express his enthusiasm for the job, quoting – who else? – Nikola Tesla. Then Pai concluded: “The wireless future is here. And the best is yet to come.”
We’re not sure what a start date of April Fools' Day means, but we’ll roll with it. Pai is known for having a sense of humor, so who knows? Maybe he’ll pass out oversized Reese’s coffee mugs to everyone at CTIA’s offices. Or maybe he’ll prank his old FCC colleague Brendan Carr, who’s now the chair of the FCC. Whatever happens, we’ll keep our eyes peeled for any April 1 shenanigans.
Article updated with additional commentary from Blair Levin of New Street Research.