Nations that have a comprehensive 5G plan are going to do better, and the U.S. hasn’t fully achieved that designation yet, Jessica Rosenworcel, a commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), said today during a virtual event.

“One of the problems I have with the current administration is in April we were supposed to have a national spectrum policy plan thinking about 5G. It hasn't come out yet, and that was due last April actually,” she said during an event organized by Foreign Policy.

“When you look at other parts of the world, those that are developing these plans are thinking thoughtfully about what airwaves and spectrum to bring to market, they're thinking thoughtfully about the type of research and development” required,” Rosenworcel said. “Planning like that is the most essential element in making sure that a nation is successful, and it goes from early efforts with spectrum … all the way through the kind of verticals that can help grow an economy and develop new innovations.” 

America’s political leaders and regulators have also done a disservice to rural Americans by pushing millimeter-wave (mmWave) spectrum into auctions before mid-band spectrum, according to Rosenworcel. The FCC’s auction of 3.5 GHz spectrum gets underway tomorrow, but a series of mmWave spectrum auctions precede that.

“Candidly, in the United States we should have given a lot more thought to this early on, because our early spectrum efforts for the 5G era were concentrated in high-band airwaves. … When we think about getting deployment to rural America or less developed parts of the world, we’re going to have to think about the right spectrum that can cover more people in more places with less ground-based equipment,” she said.

“Given my choice I would have started it three years ago. If I had the privilege of a time machine I would use it to go back and start on mid-band spectrum,” Rosenworcel said. “I think around the world you’ll see that’s the sweet spot for deployment to get to people who live in rural areas and less-populated locations.”

Rosenworcel also shared some concerns about spectrum activities outside of the U.S. and the far-reaching impacts of the COVID-19 crisis. “I do have some concern candidly that, with the global pandemic ongoing, we are seeing some delays in spectrum auctions, probably some delays in equipment development — standards processes have elongated their timelines and I think that will slow some things down,” she said.

At least 10 countries have delayed spectrum auctions so far, according to Rosenworcel, but she maintains a positive outlook on the long-term benefits of 5G. “I am also confident that, when we get this technology in the hands of innovators at scale, we’re going to see some really new and radical things that I’m not capable of telling you today. But I think every sector of our economy is going to be affected by this. Nothing will be untouched,” she said.

Michael Murphy, CTO of the Americas at Nokia, concurred with that assessment. “As a rule of thumb, we haven’t been very good at predicting what technology will be used for from 3G to 4G in general as an industry, and 5G will be no different,” he said.

“I think there is a role for the government to subsidize 5G in different ways, through the entire product lifecycle by the way,” including research, activities around spectrum, site costs and permitting, financing, and positioning 5G for adoption by industries and government agencies, he said.

“5G has all the technology components to deliver on the hype more so than the previous generations, but there will be a sequencing to it,” Murphy said, adding that the groundwork of 5G deployments have already surpassed previous mobile network upgrades. 

Among the top U.S. operators, for example, he said the period of time between the first and last launch of 5G was two months compared to 28 months on 4G LTE. “If we do the same comparison across the U.S., China, Japan, and Korea, the difference between first and last was 36 months, and then in 5G it’s been less than 12 months,” Murphy said. 

Chris Pearson, president at 5G Americas, highlighted the long road ahead for 5G activities. “When you start to think about competition and this race to 5G, we're at the very tip of the iceberg. We're at 93 global deployments or commercial deployments of 5G right now. And we're moving to the year end, given this pandemic hopefully everything goes smoothly, probably a prediction of about over 200 5G deployments,” he said during the event.

“There is a race going on but it's a race that actually benefits really all citizens of the world,” Pearson said. 

Panelists were also asked to share thoughts on the security concerns that have erupted around 5G given the sometimes boiling and other times simmering trade war between the U.S. and China. The Trump administration has already effectively killed Huawei’s ambitions in the U.S. market through a series of legal and restrictive regulatory measures, and the global influence of those efforts are spreading. 

The U.K. government last week decided to ban and require the removal of Huawei’s equipment from its networks by 2027, and China is reportedly weighing retaliatory measures against Ericsson and Nokia if the European Union’s member states follow suit. 

“There’s a number of markets that have started to look at questions about trustworthiness of suppliers. That’s a conversation that’s mostly government-to-government at this point, but it is an intense conversation nonetheless,” said Brian Hendricks, VP of policy and public affairs at Nokia America. 

In its interactions with governments in countries where Nokia operates, the vendor is highlighting its 155-year history and “our highly ethical conduct, our transparent governance, and just the track record of lawful conduct that we have. And we suggest that that’s a reasonable basis to take a look at whether a supplier is ultimately trustworthy and then to look at questions about supply chain security as well,” he said.

Hendricks invoked the need for “comprehensive policy, not just hard-edge diplomacy” in gauging the trustworthiness and security of a vendor’s radio access network (RAN) equipment. “To do so from an agnostic fashion it’s in some respects a bit of a distraction to look at this from a country of origin or a particular vendor perspective. We think there’s plenty of information available for our operator customers and governments to take a look and decide for themselves what trustworthy and trustable suppliers ultimately look like,” he said. 

“One country isn't going to be able to alter that landscape. It's going to really need to be something that is done on a multilateral basis.”