Wireless Telecommunications

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.

5G is evolving fast in the US. In just a few months, the 5G experience we saw has changed dramatically on each carrier. And, while progress has boosted many 5G measures, in other 5G categories we see big drops. Looking at 5G over the summer, we saw that average 5G Download Speed using Verizon ranged from 508.3 Mbps to 338 Mbps. But now in these five cities the highest average speed we see using Verizon is 68.0 Mbps.

Verizon has bold ambitions to have its 5G Ultra Wideband enabled in 60 cities by the end of 2020, but to do that it needs more fiber in those urban areas. Verizon CTO Kyle Malady said the company was aggressively adding fiber in those urban areas through its One Fiber program. Through One Fiber, Verizon is adding 5G nodes on its fiber across the 60 cities where it is deploying the 5G Ultra Wideband service. Verizon's One Fiber project, which has been ongoing for several years, combined all of the comglomerate's fiber needs and planning into one project.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has been extremely popular with the telecom companies he’s regulated for the last four years, but one corner of the industry will not be sad to see the chairman step down. The carriers that provide mobile service to the nation’s neediest citizens say Pai is trampling them on his way out the door while pulling critical service away from those hit hardest by this year’s economic downturn. Lifeline providers say an FCC order that took effect December 1 will force them to stop offering free data service to qualified low-income customers.

Dish Network announced fiber agreements with Everstream, Segra, Uniti and Zayo. Those four fiber partnerships will provide fronthaul and backhaul support for Dish's 5G network to sites covering approximately 60 million US citizens. Dish expects to have some small preliminary 5G markets live in the first quarter of 2021 before having its first major 5G market deployment by the third quarter. The agreements with the four fiber companies will give Dish access to fiber coast-to-coast to connect to markets with its cloud-native, Open RAN based 5G network.

5G is expected to provide the connective tissue for many emerging technologies critical to productivity, innovation, and national competitiveness. Some commentators have panicked over the so-called “race” for 5G, pointing in fear at China’s hundreds of thousands of new base stations, and projections of hundreds of millions of 5G subscribers this year alone. But if we are going to base policy decisions on this race (and it is questionable that we should), understanding how infrastructure and subscription numbers are actually counted matters.

On December 12, 2013, the Federal Communications Commission adopted a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking proposing to revise its rules governing mobile communications services aboard airborne aircraft, and to permit inflight voice and/or data services via mobile wireless frequencies subject to certain conditions. Based on the record in response to the FCC’s proposals, the FCC declines to pursue, and hereby closes, this rulemaking proceeding. The record is insufficient to determine any reasonable solution that would strike an appropriate balance of competing interests.

The White House has pushed the Pentagon to set up a controversial spectrum-leasing plan matching one being proposed by a politically connected company called Rivada Networks, which wants the lucrative job of using that spectrum to create a nationwide 5G network. Rivada proposing that it create a 5G network and rent out that spectrum to private companies such as Netflix, Facebook or Tesla. Some of the revenue would be sent back to the federal government. If the arrangement moved forward, a formal procurement process would determine what sort of fees Rivada could collect.

One message that is understood in all languages around the globe is that communications technology can improve people’s lives and grow our economies. Increasingly, the technology that people think can drive transformative change is 5G. Soon, these next-generation wireless networks will affect almost every aspect of our society and economy—from businesses to homes, hospitals to transportation networks, manufacturing to the power grid.

The Government Accountability Office was asked to assess the technologies associated with 5G and their implications. This report discusses (1) how the performance goals and expected uses are to be realized in U.S. 5G wireless networks, (2) the challenges that could affect the performance or usage of 5G wireless networks in the U.S., and (3) policy options to address these challenges.