By Ryan Gerbrandt

It’s been said that the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time: Today.

For every leader and organization that—like Anterix—is involved with charting a course for our nation’s critical infrastructure, this proverb is significant. As we look ahead to 2025 and all that it will bring—including a new Administration, a new Congress, continued technological transformation, and so much more—I am convinced that now is the time to accelerate modernizing the critical infrastructure we need for leadership in the global economy.

For Anterix—a technology and telecommunications company that provides cutting-edge connectivity solutions to our nation’s utilities—helping to advance opportunities and address challenges is at the core of our mission. By providing foundational 900 MHz wireless broadband connectivity solutions through our spectrum and the 115+ solutions providers in the Anterix Active Ecosystem, we are helping to accelerate a cleaner, smarter, more resilient, and more secure energy future.

As a company, Anterix already has been making progress in 2025: Our co-founder, Morgan O’Brien, rounded out his remarkable and visionary career in telecommunications and, as anticipated, transitioned Anterix’s chairman role to Tom Kuhn—a visionary leader of the electric power sector. The Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) has contracted with us to purchase additional 900 MHz wireless broadband licenses to extend LCRA’s ability to support future growth in Texas, building upon LCRA’s initial purchase of 900 MHz licenses announced in 2023. And, the FCC has approved a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to expand the 900 MHz broadband segment from 3 MHz by 3 MHz to 5 MHz by 5 MHz.

Continuing CapEx

Today, investing in modernizing and expanding the electricity grid—perhaps the most critical of all critical infrastructure—is more than a generational opportunity to enhance resilience, cybersecurity, efficiency, and decarbonization. For all those reasons and more, it’s a necessity. Growing threats from hostile actors and Mother Nature. The increasing urgency to decarbonize not only the electric power sector but more of the economy through the electric grid. Customers’ expectations that the industry will continue providing safe, reliable power while also addressing affordability and energy equity. The industry’s historic load growth, powering data centers, electric transportation, and other emerging electricity-intensive applications.

The convergence of all these priorities makes our work all the more critical and all the more timely. Altogether, answering the call of these tectonic forces is essential for our nation’s utilities. Doing so also unlocks a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for them as they become ever-greater partners, resources, and pillars for resiliency, reliability, efficiency, and economy-wide energy for their customers and communities.

Recognizing these challenges and greeting them as opportunities is why U.S. electric utilities are continuing in their historical position as the nation’s most capital-intensive industry. The Edison Electric Institute estimates $202.7 billion of capital spending by investor-owned electric utilities in 2024 alone.

Accelerated Grid Decentralization and Distribution Automation

Harnessing and fully utilizing the growth of distributed energy resources on the grid—from rooftop solar to home batteries, EVs, and more—is a major driver of innovation, efficiency, and grid monitoring and control for utilities. Coupled with microgrids and virtual power plants also gaining traction, the grid will never again be a simple, straight line from generator to customer. As well, gaining greater insight into the operation of edge computing devices will be essential to improving utility grid operations.

Sharpening the Focus on Reliability and Resiliency

With extreme weather events becoming more and more prevalent, all utilities will be confronted with increased scrutiny on reliability and resiliency. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, two dozen weather-related catastrophes each caused $1 billion or more of damage in 2024. Mitigating impacts on the grid—and on grid customers—from events like last year’s wildfires, tornados, ice storms, and Hurricanes Beryl, Debby, Francine, Helene, and Milton will continue to be a key priority for utilities and for every one of their stakeholders.

Cybersecurity threats also continue to demand cross-sector attention. For example, the Salt Typhoon attack on public telecommunications carriers highlighted the need for proactive measures by government, telecommunications providers, utilities, and technology companies to stay ahead of emerging threats. The Anterix Security Collective®, a powerful alliance of leading security solutions, is just one of the many important ways that the industry and individual companies are proactively advancing security across a broad front. As well, with global security threats increasing, protecting our industry’s critical supply chains will again come into focus—a major priority of the Anterix Security Collective.

AI Will Accelerate the Utility Transformation

There’s already been a lot of focus on the increasing power demands that are following the increasing accessibility and use of generative AI. I’ve seen less discussion, however, of what generative AI can do to enhance utilities’ operations. As leading utilities are becoming more connected, they’re collecting more real-time data on things like consumption patterns, asset data and grid operations. Generative AI will help utilities leverage that data to better manage the grid, help to enhance safety for workers and communities, and deliver enhanced resilience, security, control, and customer satisfaction.

The Importance of 900 MHz Spectrum for U.S. Electric Utilities

At Anterix, we believe that grid communications is squarely at the nexus of all these trends—from utility investment in a smarter energy future to decentralization, resiliency, security, and the growth of AI. I believe that 2025 will be the year when utilities take a new approach to understanding spectrum assets and the capabilities that specific frequencies offer for grid modernization, resiliency, and other key industry-wide strategic objectives.

For U.S. electric utilities, having access to Anterix’s 900 MHz spectrum is like securing a prime piece of land for their new transmission line or generation station. This spectrum is the basis for a dedicated, interference-free communication network that is foundational for the future of their grid. Built upon this foundation, private LTE networks are the backbone of a modern, digital grid, allowing utilities to monitor and control their infrastructure in real-time, ensure a stable and reliable power supply, provide visibility and situational awareness to ensure security is intact, support data-hungry AI use cases, and respond swiftly to any issues that arise.

My final prediction for the utility space: Anterix, our team of professionals, and the entire movement of thought leaders and innovative organizations that we have built are going to be at the center of these changes.

One common thread among all these predictions: advanced grid communications plays a role in enabling and advancing all of them (and more). A decentralized grid needs more communication and control. Private LTE helps to make a grid more resilient and can help utilities better optimize disaster response operations. And the easiest way to collect and transfer data in real time across a grid spanning hundreds of thousands of miles is through private wireless communications.

As we look forward to 2025, it’s clear that the utility industry is on the cusp of significant transformation. Together, Anterix and the members of the 900 MHz utility broadband revolution are proud to embrace the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead, harnessing the power of technology, connectivity, and innovation to build a resilient energy future.