The pricey path to 5G

On Dec. 8, the Federal Communications Commission will begin selling off another swath of wireless spectrum to accelerate the country’s march toward the full promise of 5G. In an auction projected to yield as much as $50 billion to the U.S. Government, 57 companies have qualified for the opportunity to bid on 5,684 spectrum licenses to serve 406 partial economic areas — or markets — throughout the US. There’s gold in those 5G airwaves. The path to profit and preeminence depends almost entirely on how much spectrum the companies can garner from the US government. But getting there will not be cheap. Americans want the latest, fastest, and coolest technology and telecom companies are spending to deliver it.

[Adonis Hoffman is CEO of The Advisory Counsel, Inc., chairman of Business in the Public Interest, Inc. where he leads the Responsible Technology Initiative, and founder of yourprivacymatters.org. He is a former chief of staff and senior legal advisor at the FCC and served in legal and policy positions in the US House of Representatives.]