“Trump team considers nationalizing 5G network.” That’s what Axios and other media headlines were blaring in January 2018 when the myth began that the Trump administration wanted the federal government to nationalize or take over America’s emerging fifth-generation (5G) mobile technology. Now on the eve of the 2020 presidential election that myth is making a comeback. Several Republican Senators, including Marco Rubio and John Thune who should know better; and Democrat commissioners on the FCC, have been attacking a DoD strategy that would fundamentally change the future of 5G in America and the world, for the better.
In an age of fake news, the “nationalization of 5G” lie has been one of the most destructive the national media has sustained. In 2018 it cost an NSC staffer his job. It also cost America valuable time to get ahead of the future of wireless and the Internet. The rise of the Huawei juggernaut dominating the 5G landscape; the threat of China dominating the global economic future; has been the direct result.
The truth is, America can’t move forward, unless this false narrative is finally to laid to rest, and the real path the Trump administration is pursuing regarding the future of wireless technology, is made clear.
Confidence in the security and resilience of our 5G networks has to be a national priority. The U.S. government has concluded that untrusted vendors operating on these networks will pose a perilous risk to our national security. That’s why Washington has been putting pressure on allies and partners to ban Chinese telecom giant firm Huawei from their present and future 5G networks—and why we need to make sure the interests of Big Telecom and the FCC don’t slow the process of building and safeguarding those networks.
The fact is, there was never a nationalization scheme, then or later. A National Security Council staffer, Air Force General Robert Spalding, understood that 5G represented the future not just of wireless but the future of the internet, and virtually every device in modern life that relies on digital data from home thermostats and cell phones to driverless cars. As a technology 5G will be far too ubiquitous, with too many points of vulnerability (more than 3 million connected devices per square mile, compared to ten thousand for 4G), to be treated as just an extension of existing wireless technology. Spalding and others on the NSC saw the need to respond to China’s surging effort to dominate this technology, and the urgent need for a national strategy to counterbalance Beijing’s bid for global domination.
Unfortunately, those who saw that strategy as a threat to their wireless business, struck back with false headlines claiming this heralded a government takeover. A storm of media controversy made Spalding the scapegoat, and he was forced out—but not before he managed to get concerns about the future of 5G built into the Trump administration’s 2018 National Security Strategy.
For two years hopes for national action on 5G languished—even as Huawei enrolled more than ninety countries in its future 5G network. The administration is now trying to claw back the ground it lost, first by getting more countries to join America’s Huawei ban (Germany may join this important coalition, although Deutsche Telekom is lobbying hard to keep deploying Huawei 5G in Europe). Another is investing some $600 million in creating a 5G network built out from DoD’s own broadband spectrum—a network that the Pentagon and our military can rely on to be safe, secure, and free from Chinese manipulation.
Another arm of this 5G counteroffensive is a public request for proposals for creating future 5G networks out of another swathe of DoD-controlled spectrum that can be leased directly to users, like auto companies for use for their future AV’s and FedEx and Amazon for their package delivery business.
Far from nationalizing 5G, the plan actually frees up spectrum for a diversity of 5G users, and creates a wholesale market where those who need bandwidth can lease what they need, without having to pay a commercial middleman for the privilege—with plenty of bandwidth left over for emergency or first-user purposes.
Instead of relying on government to fund or operate this network, everything would be in private hands. In addition, any deployment and operation in this available spectrum would still be accountable to the NTIA and the FCC.
It’s true the big telecom companies who were instrumental in building 5G’s predecessor 4G, and allied voices at the FCC, don’t care for this plan. It’s also not just Big Telecom who is consternated by this innovative approach, but China. Until now a business-as-usual approach to 5G, involving large, expensive government spectrum auctions to a handful of telecom operators, has served Beijing’s interests very nicely around the world. A whole new paradigm for how spectrum is allocated, and who gains access to that spectrum, will force governments and telecom operators to reimagine spectrum allocation for 5G in ways that can undermine Huawei’s key strategic advantage, which has been cheap construction and maintenance to offset the high cost of acquiring spectrum via standard auctions.
The bottom line is, none of this is a blueprint for nationalization, nor is it a crazy Trump scheme. On the contrary, support for the DoD’s RFP is drawing together a coalition of conservative China hawks and open-access Democrats and libertarians, who see the dual advantage of expanding access to 5G as well as the number of stakeholders, and doing it in ways that means banning Huawei is just the first step to a bigger, better, cheaper, and more secure 5G future.
And what about Big Telecom? Far from suffering from the increased competition for 5G spectrum, they will become eventual winners, since they will be able to focus their energies and innovative skills on what they know best, mobile wireless communication. AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon—none of them want to see China and Huawei dominate our global future. Instead of seeing them as foes, the next big step in America’s 5G strategy has to be recruiting Big Telecom as resources and allies for the push to create a 5G that activates freedom and prosperity around the world, as well as in America.
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