Trump Administration Announces Its Big 5G Push: Largest-Ever Spectrum Auction and a 20.4B Fund

Home / News

Trump Administration Announces Its Big 5G Push: Largest-Ever Spectrum Auction and a 20.4B Fund

By CircleID Reporter
April 12, 2019, 7:42 pm PDT Views: 10,560 Add Comment

APRIL 12, 2019 / President Trump, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai announce a major push towards 5G deployment during a special event held in the White House.

In a special White House event today, President Trump along with FCC chair Ajit Pai, announced a major push towards 5G deployment as part of the “5G Fast Plan” initiative towards a “comprehensive strategy to Facilitate America’s Superiority in 5G Technology”. The event today involved two announcements:

— Big auction: FCC will begin its third 5G spectrum auction on December 10, 2019, which will be the largest spectrum auction in American history to date for commercial use. It will consist of 3,400 megahertz in three different spectrum bands. Since November 2018, the FCC has auctioned 1,550 megahertz of spectrum for use by commercial wireless providers.

— Big money: Pai also announced plans to create the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, which will inject $20.4 billion into high-speed broadband networks in rural America over the next decade.

Today’s announcement comes in the face of rising competition from China and other nations. South Korea became the first country to deploy 5G network nationwide. “Whichever country succeeds at deploying 5G early and on a massive scale will reap dividends and shape the global economy for years, analysts say,” the Washington Post reports.

By CircleID Reporter

CircleID’s internal staff reporting on news tips and developing stories. Do you have information the professional Internet community should be aware of? Contact us.

Visit Page

Filed Under

Comments

The Weekly Wrap

More and more professionals are choosing to publish critical posts on CircleID from all corners of the Internet industry. If you find it hard to keep up daily, consider subscribing to our weekly digest. We will provide you a convenient summary report once a week sent directly to your inbox. It's a quick and easy read.

I make a point of reading CircleID. There is no getting around the utility of knowing what thoughtful people are thinking and saying about our industry.

VINTON CERF
Co-designer of the TCP/IP Protocols & the Architecture of the Internet