After years of explosive growth, 5G’s future is mired in politics

In the five years since it launched in the U.S., 5G coverage has expanded across the nation, fueling personal and commercial applications. 

The low latency and high-speed mobile network can improve efficiency, letting consumers rely on faster connection amid a rise in smart devices and manufacturers streamline production. 

But as 5G spreads — with roughly 62 percent of Americans able to receive high-speed coverage at home — rising demand, lack of infrastructure and a political impasse are posing roadblocks to pushing it further.

Read more from The Hill’s special coverage on the future of broadband here.

Chip Pickering, CEO of Incompas and a former Republican congressman in Mississippi, said 5G is one more “big leap” ahead in innovation. 

When 4G launched around 2008, the iPhone hitting the market led to an influx of apps, he said, going from a market of about 10 apps to 10 million in 15 years. And 5G has propelled advancements.

“As we look at 5G, and we look ahead, it just enables more advanced technologies. Everything from AI to the internet of things, to autonomous vehicles, everything is being connected to everything,” Pickering said. 

The impact will be a driving force across sectors, from health care to education to manufacturing, he said. 

Approximately 206.4 million Americans can receive high-speed 5G coverage at home, according to data by Broadband Now, an independent broadband availability website. But that access isn’t spread evenly across the country, with gaps especially in more rural areas, based on Broadband Now’s map of coverage. 

Infrastructure, especially in rural America, is one roadblock in the way of expanding 5G access, said David Grossman, vice president of regulatory affairs at the Consumer Technology Association. 

Over the next decade, demand for 5G is expected to skyrocket as the number of average consumer connected devices increases. That expected increased demand is leading industry groups to push for more spectrum to be available for commercial use. 

At the same time, stakeholders are grappling with a political roadblock: a fight over access to that spectrum availability.

Congress let the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) longstanding authority to auction spectrum lapse in March for the first time in decades, an issue that both the agency and the wireless industry are urging Congress to fix in order to let the U.S. meet demand and stay globally competitive. 

At the crux of the political issue are Department of Defense allies on Capitol Hill pushing for the government to keep control over more of the available spectrum, with wireless companies pushing for more spectrum to be available to be licensed to them, said Tom Wheeler, a visiting fellow in governance studies at Brookings Institution and former FCC chair during the Obama administration.

Wheeler said the “political arm wrestling” that led to hampering the FCC’s authority to auction spectrum may not limit the expansion of 5G today, but it “certainly does” in the future.

“I don’t mean 10 years from now, I mean in the near term,” Wheeler said. 

Amid negotiations on a longer-term resolution, the House passed a bill that would have extended the authority through May 19. That proposal in the Senate was rejected by Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), who offered a different bill that would have extended it through the end of September to give the Pentagon and National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) time to finish a joint study on spectrum needs of critical defense capabilities. 

Rounds said during a floor debate in March that the review was critical to make sure national security is protected. 

Rounds’s proposal, put forward along with Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), was blocked by Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), which led to the current lapse. Welch said the 60-day stop-gap bill to extend the authority through May 19 would have applied pressure to parties negotiating a longer-term resolution and that the September extension was not supported in the House. 

The FCC wrote a letter to the top members of the House and Senate commerce committees urging them to “act promptly” to restore the commission’s spectrum auction authority, in part to help the U.S. compete globally, especially with China. The commissioners underscored the need to do so in the lead up to the World Radiocommunication Conference in November, when countries gather to review and revise the international treaty governing use of radio-frequency spectrum. 

The commissioners told Congress, “we must send a strong signal in advance of that meeting of our continued commitment to lead in coming generations of wireless technologies.”

Telecom industry associations sent a joint letter to the leaders of the Commerce and Armed Services committees with a similar request, urging them to restore the authority, especially as demand for wireless networks is expected to increase and as China is looking to expand 5G spectrum. 

Grossman said the U.S. traditionally has been seen as a “leader” in supporting the next generation of wireless services. As other countries, especially China, look to free up additional spectrum, “the fact that we can’t get our act together” in the U.S. has a “really negative impact” on the U.S. to keep its reputation as a leader in this space, he said.

“That to me … is a reason for congress to move expeditiously to get the FCC spectrum authority reauthorized,” Grossman said. 

A Republican House Energy and Commerce aide said lawmakers are actively working to get a deal done quickly. Their goal is to move forward with a comprehensive bill to extend the authority for several years, but a stop-gap bill for a lesser extension is not off the table as an option, according to the aide. 

House Energy and Commerce Ranking Member Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) said “time is of the essence” to extend the authority amid China’s expansion. 

“The House has acted several times, including by unanimously passing my own bipartisan bill to prevent this lapse. But we cannot give up — the stakes are too high,” Pallone said in a statement.

The ongoing lapse comes as the administration is starting discussions on the next generation of 6G. The White House held a 6G summit last month. 

Tom Power, general counsel at CTIA, the Cellular Telephone Industries Association, said 6G talks during the current lapse in FCC spectrum auction authority is essentially moot. 

“It’s kind of like the emperor has no clothes. But you don’t have a spectrum policy?” he said. “Which 6G is nothing but a standard for, or will be a standard for, how you use spectrum in a way that increases speed and reduces latency and makes it as robust as possible. And we’re talking about a policy for a product that, right now, the FCC can’t even offer.”