FCC Chairman Doesn’t Support Trump Admin’s Proposed State-Run 5G Network

The Trump administration’s national security team has reportedly been floating the idea of developing a state-run centralized, secure 5G network within three years. The idea is to create a secure communications platform for AI, VR, self-driving cars, and other technologies of the future. According to a report, the team sees it as a modern reincarnation of Eisenhower’s National Highway System in a bid to create a “new paradigm” for the wireless industry by the end of Trump’s term. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai does not support the proposed state-run 5G network.

Ajit Pai, a former Verizon lawyer and now chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, has said that he opposes any proposal for the federal government to build and operate a nationwide 5G network.

“The main lesson to draw from the wireless sector’s development over the past three decades — including American leadership in 4G — is that the market, not government, is best positioned to drive innovation and investment,” he says.

Pai adds in the statement that the government can and should push spectrum into the commercial marketplace and set the rules that encourage the private sector to develop and deploy next-generation infrastructure.

“Any federal effort to construct a nationalized 5G network would be a costly and counterproductive distraction from the policies we need to help the United States win the 5G future,” he concludes.

The proposal is far from final now, though, as Reuters hears that this proposal is currently circulating at a “low level” of the administration and that it might take up to six months before Trump would have to consider it.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: General
Tags: 5G, FCC