Trump calls for US 5G leadership once more

At a press conference the US President endorsed FCC plans to improve the country’s position in the global 5G race.

President Trump likes to cherry-pick the people who stand behind him when he is public speaking and, as well as FCC Chaiman Ajit Pai, on first glance he had what appeared to be a Village People tribute band in attendance. As you can see from the video below, however, they turned out to be telecoms engineers and some kind of rural broadband lobby group.

The main theme of Trump’s introduction to the latest 5G initiatives was the need for the US to be the world leader in 5G technology. He apparently views 5G as a key component in his geopolitical tussle with China and had previously tweeted his enthusiasm for the technology, even going so far as to bring up 6G in the process, a step too far he seemed to acknowledge in this speech.

He then made way for Pai, who announced a bunch of initiatives designed to make Trump’s 5G dreams come true. This wouldn’t be the US if the plan wasn’t encapsulated by a forced acronym and in this cast we have FAST, which stands for Facilitate America’s Superiority in 5G Technology. Here are the essentials of the FAST plan, which you can read more about here as well as watching Pai’s presentation below.

Spectrum

Later this year, the FCC will auction the upper 37 GHz, 39 GHz, and 47 GHz bands. There were only vague aspirations offered about mid and low band spectrum as well as unlicensed spectrum

Infrastructure Policy

They’re trying to make infrastructure investment more attractive as well as reducing the bureaucratic hassle around deploying small cells.

Modernizing Outdated Regulations

This includes the net neutrality dispute, ease of access to cell sites, investment in fibre and of course the ongoing matter of keeping Chinese companies out of the network.

Since you have all the footage below we won’t bother extracting any written quotes, noting only that Trump moves on to troll critics of his immigration policy towards the end of the speech, which is quite amusing. The most substantial criticism of the FAST plan seems to be the lack of activity around mid band spectrum which will, initially at least, be much more useful for 5G than all that millimetre wave stuff they’re currently focused on.