Trump campaign pushes government intervention on 5G

By JOHN HENDEL and MARGARET HARDING MCGILL03/01/2019 05:37 PM ESTPresident Donald Trump's reelection team is backing a controversial plan to give the government a role in managing America's next-generation 5G wireless networks — bucking the free market consensus view of his own administration and sparking wireless industry fears of nationalization.The plan — embraced by Trump 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale and adviser Newt Gingrich — would involve the government taking 5G airwaves and designing a system to allow for sharing them on a wholesale basis with wireless providers. The idea is also being pushed by a politically connected wireless company backed by venture capitalist Peter Thiel that could stand to benefit.Story Continued BelowIt's already getting pushback from industry, which dismisses the concept as untested and unworkable.But the Trump campaign is now fully embracing the model in a bid to woo rural voters who have long lacked decent internet service because wireless companies don't have a financial incentive to offer affordable broadband to all Americans, including those outside the biggest cities.“A 5G wholesale market would drive down costs and provide access to millions of Americans who are currently underserved,” Kayleigh McEnany, national press secretary for Trump’s 2020 campaign, told POLITICO. At the beginning of 2018, a leaked memo from the National Security Council, which envisioned the Trump administration building a nationwide 5G network to compete with China, faced immediate rejection from the wireless industry, every FCC commissioner and lawmakers of both parties, who were alarmed at the prospect of a heavy government hand in the sector.The White House at the time never explicitly ruled out the nationalization concept, with press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders saying "there are a lot of things on the table." But administration officials still scrambled to reassure the powerful wireless sector, holding a conference on 5G later in the year where Kudlow said "the White House is officially behind this free-enterprise, free-market approach." The Trump campaign is now touting a different flavor of potential government intervention into 5G, one championed by a wireless company known as Rivada Networks.