Wireless Telecommunications

A proposal from the Donald Trump 2020 re-election campaign to create a national, wholesale 5G network is drawing criticism from FCC commissioners on both sides of the aisle. Republican FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr joined Democratic FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel in speaking out against the plan. Commissioner Carr wrote, "The US won the race to 4G and secured billions of dollars in growth for the US economy by relying on America’s exceptional free market values.

Rep Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) is leading a group of progressive Democratic Representatives in calling on regulators to block the proposed $26 billion merger between T-Mobile and Sprint, arguing that the deal will hurt workers and the low-income consumers who rely on the two telecommunications giants' affordable offerings. Rep Tlaib and 36 Democratic Reps are sending letters to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai and Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim.

Cellphone numbers have become a primary way for tech companies like Facebook to uniquely identify users and secure accounts, in some ways becoming a proxy for a national ID. That over-reliance on cellphone numbers ironically makes them a less effective and secure authentication method. And the more valuable the phone number becomes as an identifier, the less willing people will be to share it for communication.

As internet speeds continue to lag in rural parts of the state, Oregon lawmakers are contemplating a new fee on cellphone service to help pay for expanded broadband in remote and underserved communities. OR House Bill 2184 would raise about $10 million a year to fund broadband projects through grants and loans. Advocates say it would cost cellphone subscribers between $4 and $12 a year. The bill will face fierce opposition from the wireless industry, though, which says it will fight to keep OR cellphone fees low.

The President Donald Trump re-election campaign sparked widespread confusion inside the Trump administration and the cellular wireless industry March 1 when it advocated for a nationwide "wholesale" 5G network, which is 180 degrees from official White House policy. The Trump campaign is now walking back the statement from Kayleigh McEnany, national press secretary for Trump’s 2020 campaign, saying they did not intend to set new policy. McEnany said, "The White House sets the policy on 5G and all issues.

President Donald Trump's reelection team is backing a controversial plan to give the government a role in managing America's next-generation 5G wireless networks — bucking the free market consensus view of his own administration and sparking wireless industry fears of nationalization. The plan — embraced by Trump 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale and adviser Newt Gingrich — would involve the government taking 5G airwaves and designing a system to allow for sharing them on a wholesale basis with wireless providers.

The Georgia state senate unanimously passed a bill Feb 25 aimed at making it easier for telecommunications companies to extend small-cell wireless broadband, the latest iteration of the technology, along public rights of way. Meanwhile, separate bills allowing Georgia's electric membership corporations to enter the broadband business, aimed primarily to increase broadband capacity in rural counties, also has cleared the House and won approval in a Senate committee.

By now, most of you have already had two days of non-stop talk about 5G. So, I was trying to think of a way to mix things up—to keep it fresh. And I came up with an idea. I will deliver my remarks in Spanish. [Chairman Pai proceeded to deliver the remarks in Spanish. Below is a brief translation.]

Companies hunting for space to place wireless equipment in New York City snapped up the rights to street lamps and traffic lights dotting Fifth Avenue in the heart of Manhattan in 2013. They didn’t stake claims to large clusters of sites in less affluent areas until three years later. City officials are now trying to change that trend, pushing companies that lease public space for telecom-equipment installations to move more aggressively beyond the city’s core, to improve wireless services more quickly for a broader swath of residents.

Officials from the US State Department and the Federal Communications Commission outlined their campaign to exclude Huawei from allies’ next generation communications networks, calling the Chinese equipment-maker “duplicitous and deceitful”. The officials, however, declined to offer any specific evidence of so-called backdoors in Huawei infrastructure that would permit it to spy on the US or its allies.