Politico

President Donald Trump says he wants America to win the race to the fast new wireless future. He took it seriously enough to sign a presidential memorandum setting a deadline of July 2019 for a new national strategy on allocating the airwaves. That deadline came and went with no strategy in sight. In September, a Commerce Department undersecretary promised that the strategy was still on the way, telling a gathering of government officials that it would be released in the fall. A Commerce official said that the department did indeed deliver a draft to the White House.

A Q&A with Robert Blair, senior advisor to the White House Chief of Staff. His new challenge: help further Trump’s global aims on 5G, including an ongoing campaign to prevent America’s allies from relying on Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei. “One of the messages that I want to bring to people is: Take a breath,” Blair says. “The Chinese are not winning this race.”

Can Americans actually get 5G? The rollout of high-speed 5G hinges on a mix of domestic and global telecommunications policies, many of which still need to be resolved. US carriers need larger swaths of airwaves to transmit all that data, and new technology to make the most of their existing bandwidth. The highest 5G speeds will also require far more transmitters—think small antennas on every city block, not occasional towers. And on the global stage, 5G standards are still being hashed out by the world’s economic powers. Not all 5G is created equal.

It’ll be years before most people have 5G phones and a super-fast network to connect them, but the future of mobile technology is shaping up right now. Behind the promises lie some big government decisions about what to prioritize, how to compete, and how fast to move. As citizens and consumers, whether they know it or not, people are being asked to weigh convenience against privacy, national competitiveness against national security, and speed against price.

The tech world is closely watching President Donald Trump’s two-day visit to India, which could have implications for digital trade, 5G and other policy areas. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai is part of the US delegation in tow. “We will be discussing issues of mutual interest like 5G and bridging the digital divide,” Chairman Pai said in a video he shared via Twitter, “and we will aim to deepen the friendship between the world’s oldest democracy and its largest.”