Posted on 01/29/2018 11:53:11 AM PST by markomalley
All five commissioners for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) came out Monday against the idea of the federal government building out technical networks for the next generation of wireless technology simply known as 5G.
“I oppose any proposal for the federal government to build and operate a nationwide 5G network,” FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, a Republican, said in a statement. “The main lesson to draw from the wireless sector’s development over the past three decades—including American leadership in 4G—is that the market, not government, is best positioned to drive innovation and investment.”
“A network built by the federal government, I fear, does not leverage the best approach needed for our nation to win the 5G race,” said FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, a Democrat. “The United States’ leadership in the deployment of 5G is critical and must be done right. Localities have a central role to play; the technical expertise possessed by industry should be utilized; and cybersecurity must be a core consideration.”
The comments are in response to an Axios report that alleges the Trump administration is considering nationalizing a 5G network rollout. There are no apparent indicators on the obtained documents that show it’s from the National Security Council, which Axios reports.
A former higher-up for the National Telecommunications & Information Administration (part of the U.S. Department of Commerce) reportedly said that the records evoke mediocrity or lack signs of serious official consideration.
Nevertheless, the commissioners felt the need to publicly speak out on the issue of 5G, which will be — if it isn’t already so — the next biggest thing in the economy and perhaps society.
“Consumers in the U.S. have benefited from the deployment of world-leading 4G networks precisely because we got the government out of the way,” said Republican Commissioner Brendan Carr. “Any suggestion that the federal government should build and operate a nationwide 5G network is a non-starter.”
“I’ve seen lead balloons tried in D.C. before but this is like a balloon made out of a Ford Pinto,” Commissioner Michael O’Rielly, a Republican, said in a statement, referring to the infamous disaster vehicle from decades ago. “If accurate, the Axios story suggests options that may be under consideration by the Administration that are nonsensical and do not recognize the current marketplace.”
Democratic Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel also came out in opposition to the purported plan, showcasing oft-elusive solidarity in the federal agency.
Organizations and think tanks of several types voiced their agreement with Chairman Pai and the rest of the Commission, even alluding to historical examples.
“The U.S. should not make the same mistake as Australia, whose bungled attempt at building a nationalized wholesale network turned that country into a broadband backwater,” Fred Campbell, director of Tech Knowledge, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “More than a century of experience has proven that government-operated networks don’t work.”
Officials within the Trump administration have allegedly told Recode that the aforementioned documents acquired by Axios are outdated, and were merely introduced by a lower level staff member, and thus not a true sign of imminent policy.
TheDCNF still awaits White House comment for further details, but Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said during a press briefing Monday that it is far too early in the process to elaborate on any specific or overarching plan.
Scott Cleland, chairman of the advocacy group NetCompetition, says that “an analysis of the Axios-reported memo … makes it clear that Alphabet-Google and SoftBank are the moving force behind it.”
“The proposal obviously would benefit their interests first and foremost and it goes in the exact direction they have lobbied for over the last several years,” he continued, alleging it’s at least partially due to SoftBank’s chummy relationship with China and Google’s apparent wishes to create such a relationship with the country for personal business interests.
Cleland adds that “for Alphabet-Google, the big ‘tell’ is on page 26 of the document” in which “Google is tellingly the only company listed as part of the twelve ‘government’ entities” with ostensible support for such a plan.
“This apparent unique Google-government relationship,” according to Cleland, “obviously flows from the unique role that Google had as the only corporate leader involved in the Obama OSTP [Office of Science and Technology Policy] PCAST [President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology] report that proposed a very similar nationalized 5G wireless approach in 2012.”
Agreed.
THIS IS FAKE NEWS!!!! Unnamed “sources”! This is the “death by a thousand cuts” type of story meant to promote Trump as being a dictator.
Trump needs a Rapid Response team to squash all of these FAKE news reports.
I wouldn’t trust Obama or his ilk with that kind of power.
A government run 5G would work like the Obamacare website.
The USA has a 3rd world Federal Government. It really runs no more efficiently than say, Brazil’s or Turkey’s
The key is keeping it at bay, while free (and responsible) Americans run things themselves.
Windows is free?
They were all behind the Government taking over the Internet though!
Careful, you’ll be accused of “tinfoil” like I was when I said basically the same thing to some coworkers over 10 years ago.
Axios is Comcast!
.
Commissioners don’t make the law, they enforce it.
Who cares whatr they think?
.
That was in the beginning, when they were just trying this and that.
If they had any clue what it would turn into they would have kept it all to themselves.
And trust me- I was there for FIDONET.
Before they knew what was happening it had grown a million times over.
I worked for a military and NASA contractor at the time. We were in competition to design the DoD-I language that became Ada. Came in 2nd. But we used that network to communicate at the time.
I remember that: “Green is ADA”
In the 2nd phase, green was beating us. Biggest problem for us - lack of integrity. Each part was lovely but they didn’t fit together. Our main designer returned from Germany just in time to take over the final phase. Seeing the problem, he threw out red and created RED. THAT had integrity. The problem was that it took the whole phase to finish. By the end of the phase, the language was exquisite. AND we had a compiler to prove it. But everyone was writing books about and course syllabi about Green. So no one was paying attention to us. They’d get on a plane intending to vote Green, read us FINALLY and change their vote to Red. And then we got to the voting place. Oh, and Green couldn’t get a compiler going so they convinced the judges to throw the compiler part out of consideration. But the AF had decided on Green and it had to be unanimous. So they sent a lieutenant. The man knew nothing about the languages, was instructed to vote for Green, and instructed not discuss the matter. The man from DCA was physically shaking in his seat. But unanimous it had to be and it was Green. Jean stood on stage and said the language was the same and it had changed massively. He was right. He’d left the syntax the same and changed the underlying semantics. Our company was paid for a year to fix Jean’s mistakes.
http://www.iment.com/maida/computer/redref/index.htm
After the contest, I started Ada LETTERS and the AdaTEC organization. I was chair of Programming Languages and pulled AdaTEC into that organization eventually. I was also the consultant to Time/Life’s Programming Languages book and the best thing I think I’ve done with my life was spend the time telling them about Bill Whitaker, who came up with the idea and thought everyone would forget him. When the book came out I called him and read him all the sections about him and told him that now he’d never be forgotten. I remember a medal he had on his chest (AF) that he explained was for the calculations done so that when you dropped a nuclear bomb, you could get the plane the heck out of there. Absolutely lovely man.
Did anything ever become of RED?
And to me, ADA always looked like something designed by a government committee.
It lacked ‘elegance’. It just seemed like C with some new features and different syntax.
No. We purposely let it drop because we wanted to win contracts for working with Ada. Keeping up Red would have been VERY bad politics.
The contest was NEVER about pushing the state of the art. It was about doing tried and true several year old technology. Remember, the big thing at the time was that the services couldn’t communicate through languages. These were still the days when people wrote simulators for a machine simulating an older machine simulating a still older machine, and on it sat a compiler compiling some unused language.
The rules were that the result for each language would be Ada PLUS two of their own languages. The Navy chose SPL/I, a language I worked on and a book I wrote, and oh, my mind is freezing for the other. We never got far enough with CS-4. I’m thinking it was a SofTech language but my mind is mud. The army had TACPOL[E?] which became the army standard language because it was the only one they could find used on two separate projects. I’m afraid it’s been too many years. I’m fuzzing on details I used to know.
each language ==> each service
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.