Monday, January 29, 2018

Trump Administration Considering Government Takeover of 5G Mobile Networks



The Trump administration apparently wants to turn part of the U.S. communications system into a government controlled monopoly.

Trump national security officials are considering an unprecedented federal takeover of a portion of the nation’s mobile network, allegedly to guard against China, according to sensitive documents obtained by Axios.

The online news service reports:
We’ve got our hands on a PowerPoint deck and a memo — both produced by a senior National Security Council official — which were presented recently to senior officials at other agencies in the Trump administration.


The main points: The documents say America needs a centralized nationwide 5G network within three years. There'll be a fierce debate inside the Trump administration — and an outcry from the industry — over the next 6-8 months over how such a network is built and paid for.

Two options laid out by the documents:


  1. The U.S. government pays for and builds the single network — which would be an unprecedented nationalization of a historically private infrastructure.
  2. An alternative plan where wireless providers build their own 5G networks that compete with one another — though the document says the downside is it could take longer and cost more. It argues that one of the “pros” of that plan is that it would cause “less commercial disruption” to the wireless industry than the government building a network.
Between the lines: A source familiar with the documents' drafting says Option 2 is really no option at all: a single centralized network is what's required to protect America against China and other bad actors.

The source said the internal White House debate will be over whether the U.S. government owns and builds the network or whether the carriers bind together in a consortium to build the network, an idea that would require them to put aside their business models to serve the country's greater good.
A Silicon Valley executive's response when I relayed the above to him replied, "What dumb bastards, they don't realize that a decentralized system would be the most difficult for China to crack in its entirety."

I have written before, but feel compelled to write once more, Trump is nothing but a dumb statist and, I must now add, that he seems to be getting sea legs in his efforts to introduce more central planning programs in the United States.

Yes, Trump wants to end competition and bring TSA-style government "protection" to your cell phone. What an idiot.

-RW

UPDATE


3 comments:

  1. When has the government done any project cheaper than a private corporation, it's never happened.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This pisses me off to no end. So much wrong with this. And they trying to use china as some boogie man to push this

    ReplyDelete
  3. I wonder how many of these people complaining about nationalizing 5G are supportive of the government nationalizing healthcare.

    ReplyDelete