Can’t say that either side is right in this argument.
Both ignore the current reality of the way our wireless infrastructure works in
the U.S.
Carr says stay the course and let the private sector build out the 5G
infrastructure. Gingrich say we need a public/private partnership to deploy a
“wholesale” network.
The reality is that we already have the wholesale network infrastructure in the
U.S. with carriers pooling spectrum resources via independent tower operators,
cross licensing, and wholesale of the excess capacity to cellular companies
that do not own any spectrum or infrastructure.
I agree with Carr that we need to stay the course - the government is already
WAY TOO INVOLVED in our communications industries...
Regards
Craig
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/04/5g-network-market-private-sector-must-lead/
The Private Sector Must Lead the Way to 5G
Rick BoucherApril 8, 2019 6:30 AM
We won’t beat China by aping its command-and-control approach.
There’s an interesting debate brewing on these pages between former House
speaker Newt Gingrich and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) commissioner
Brendan Carr on how to make the move to super-fast 5G wireless networks and how
to protect America in the process.
By way of background, I founded the House Internet Caucus back when Gingrich
was speaker. We didn’t see eye-to-eye on very much, but I welcomed his
occasional interest in technology.
On this issue, though, he is wrong, and Commissioner Carr is right. The best —
really the only — way to ensure the fastest possible deployment of 5G
technology and to preserve American leadership in wireless is to follow the
path that has driven American leadership in 4G. The private sector, not the
government, must take the lead, and the primary government role should be to
continue selling 5G spectrum to the private sector at auction.
In January of last year, it was reported that the Trump administration was
considering, in effect, nationalizing at least part of the 5G spectrum by
having one government-owned network. This poorly considered idea was rejected
the very next day by the administration’s own FCC chairman, Ajit Pai. We all
hoped that the notion had been squelched.
Now, however, Gingrich has revived the controversy, first with a piece widely
interpreted as favoring nationalization and then in his response to
Commissioner Carr here at NRO. In the latter article, Gingrich calls for a
“public-private partnership [with] shared spectrum available for a
carrier-neutral, wholesale-only, nationwide 5G network.”
While he suggests that the government-fostered wholesale network be built with
private capital, he doesn’t say from where the money would come, and he clearly
envisions a broad government role. What would that role be? How would a
wholesale network work with multiple companies contributing to its construction
and multiple carriers utilizing it for services? Gingrich doesn’t say, but if
the rules for FCC spectrum auctions are complex and take too long to resolve,
one can only imagine how difficult it would be to create rules for one network
that multiple providers are supposed to finance and share.
Gingrich is preoccupied with the notion that Chinese companies will build 5G
networks in other countries, arguing that to counter those efforts, we need
government involvement in the development of our own 5G network. This leap of
logic is particularly hard to comprehend because the major carriers in the
U.S., with strong government urging, have already decided not to buy core
wireless technology developed by Chinese companies. Our carriers today purchase
routers and other hardware from providers outside of the U.S., including Nokia
and Erickson, since no U.S. companies currently compete in that market. But the
intelligent parts of the networks — the computer chips, software, and back-end
operations — are already provided by leading American companies, including
QUALCOMM, Juniper, and Cisco. Our government can and seems willing to prevent
Chinese equipment providers from expanding into our market, and building a
government network in the U.S. will do nothing to blunt Chinese expansion
abroad.
Gingrich claims that a government-fostered national 5G network with shared
access is necessary to unleash the power of deep liquid financial markets,
enable market price discovery, and promote a culture of innovation. Those are
exactly the virtues that have underpinned our wireless supremacy to date.
Our liquid financial markets powered the investments that enabled America to
lead the world in 4G. As for market price discovery, that’s precisely what our
spectrum auctions — the very thing Gingrich criticizes — accomplish. We have an
unrivaled culture of innovation with a network that is the envy of the world
and the platform for Google, Facebook, Amazon, and other edge providers that
are among the world’s most innovative companies. Moving to a
government-overseen network both is unnecessary and would put that success at
risk.
Spectrum-sharing does not address any perceived need, nor would it appear to
make the network more resilient or secure, or even offer a better platform on
which for edge providers to innovate.
Gingrich is right in pointing to the painful absence of broadband in large
swaths of rural America; innovative new approaches may be needed to address
this urgent concern. A role for government in providing grants to rural
electric and telephone cooperatives and other providers willing to build out
may be a partial answer, but Gingrich is not proposing a rural-only solution,
and creating a national, government-overseen 5G network doesn’t appear to offer
obvious improvements, even for rural America.
In short, major American commercial operators have the incentives they need to
get to market quickly. They are not sitting on their hands and certainly not
willingly ceding global leadership to China. This is not the time for the
government to be in the market as a wholesaler to multiple companies whose
systems are competing. That’s a recipe for confusion, slow deployments,
potential additional points of failure, and the ceding of American leadership.
Commissioner Carr is right: Our current policies, which have established
American leadership in 4G, have narrowed the digital divide, raised Internet
speeds, and put us on the path to having a far stronger deployment of 5G than
Asia will by 2022.
As we say in the mountains, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.