Should the US Change How It Doles Out Airwaves for 5G?

America needs faster, more accessible mobile internet service—and the US military controls many airwaves that are well-suited to that task. How should the Pentagon share? Some want to tap the traditional US model and auction the spectrum to the highest bidder. Others say a new approach is called for: Let the government continue to own the spectrum rights while letting private companies rent it out, allowing more users to tap the spectrum at once. Hence the debate between Jonathan Spalter, president and chief executive of USTelecom, a trade association whose members include AT&T as well as small operators, and Eric Schmidt, the former chief executive of Google and former chairman of the Defense Innovation Board, which advises the Pentagon. Schmidt is now the chairman of the National Security Commission for Artificial Intelligence and co-founder of Schmidt Futures, a philanthropic initiative.