Author: Scott Thurm / Source: WIRED
In his State of the Union address Tuesday, President Trump promised legislation to invest in “the cutting edge industries of the future.” But the speech was characteristically backward-looking. Trump talked up gains in manufacturing jobs and oil and gas exports, but didn’t once mention the word “technology,” nor any other tech policy issue, such as privacy, broadband, or antitrust.
Aides filled in the blanks. “President Trump’s commitment to American leadership in artificial intelligence, 5G wireless, quantum science, and advanced manufacturing will ensure that these technologies serve to benefit the American people and that the American innovation ecosystem remains the envy of the world for generations to come,” Michael Kratsios, deputy assistant to the president for technology policy, said in a statement.
Still, some of the administration’s other signature policy positions, such as the trade war with China and its hardline position on immigration, may be holding back progress in these areas.
5G Wireless
Of these issues, the Trump administration has perhaps been most active on 5G, an umbrella term for “next generation” wireless technologies and standards that could one day enable download speeds of up to 10GB on your phone, or around 10 times the speed of Google Fiber’s standard home service. We’re still a long way from seeing those types of speeds in reality, even as carriers begin offering “5G” branded services in a few cities.
Politicians and pundits across the political spectrum warn that if the US falls behind China in deploying 5G, the next generation of mobile platforms could emerge in China, just as Android and iOS and their respective app stores emerged in the US during earlier wireless eras.
The Trump administration sees the race to 5G as a national security issue, as much as an economic issue. The US has long feared that Chinese telco giant Huawei could plant “backdoors” in its equipment that the Chinese government could use to spy on US citizens. US carriers like AT&T and Verizon are effectively banned from using Huawei gear in their networks; but the Trump administration fears that if China gets a leg up on 5G, there will be few if any alternatives to Huawei and other Chinese vendors to build the next generation wireless networks. That led to the unusual decision to block Singapore-based chipmaker Broadcom from buying US wireless chip giant Qualcomm, even though Broadcom offered to relocate to the US.
Beyond efforts to curb Huawei’s global reach, the White House hosted a summit on 5G last September, and Trump has encouraged federal agencies to accelerate the construction of 5G networks. Much of the focus is on opening up more wireless spectrum to carriers. The Federal Communications Commission, which is responsible for licensing access to the spectrum, has identified a few chunks of spectrum that can be repurposed for 5G. Its first 5G-related spectrum auction ended last month, and another is scheduled to begin March 14. But carriers say they need more.
In a comment filed last month with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which advises the president on telecommunications policy issues, the industry group CTIA complained that less than 6.5 gigahertz of spectrum is devoted to mobile wireless while nearly 30 gigahertz is dedicated to satellite communications.
Trump signed a memo last year calling for a national strategy to allocate more spectrum to 5G, but it was short on specifics. In 2017, Senators Cory Gardner (R-Colorado) and Maggie Hassan (D-New Hampshire) introduced a more detailed plan called the Airwaves Act, which identifies several ranges of spectrum frequency that could be repurposed and auctioned off several years. The bill was reintroduced in the House last year but has yet to see a vote in either chamber.
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