Bloomberg

While the US government and telecommunications industry have been engrossed in the race to 5G, much of the country is still in a slow crawl to regular home internet service. It’s a mistake with economic consequences, and unfortunately the coronavirus pandemic could provide the harshest evidence of that.   “Carriers and the FCC are so obsessed with the next thing (5G), they’ve not ensured that everyone who needs access to the network can get it or afford it,” said Benton senior fellow and public advocate Gigi Sohn.

Big Tech and Big Telecom are wrangling over a Federal Communications Commission plan that would open up an unprecedented amount of airwaves to meet the nation’s Wi-Fi demand. The FCC is expected to vote before the end of April on a plan that may quintuple the amount of spectrum available to handle data from millions of Wi-Fi-connected smartphones, laptops, and other devices.