FILE PHOTO – U.S. President Donald Trump gestures prior to departing on a trip to Wisconsin from the White House in Washington, U.S., October 24, 2018. REUTERS/Cathal McNaughton
October 25, 2018
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday signed a presidential memorandum directing the Commerce Department to develop a long-term comprehensive national spectrum strategy to prepare for the introduction of next-generation 5G wireless networks.
Trump is also creating a White House Spectrum Strategy Task Force and wants federal agencies to report on government spectrum needs and review how spectrum can be shared with private sector users.
The goal is to ensure there is enough spectrum to handle the growing amount of internet and wireless traffic and that future faster 5G networks have adequate spectrum.
The White House also said Trump is withdrawing presidential memorandums on spectrum signed by then-President Barack Obama in 2010 and 2013.
AT&T Inc, Verizon Communications Inc, Sprint Corp and T-Mobile US Inc are working to acquire spectrum and beginning to develop and test 5G networks, which are expected to be at least 100 times faster than current 4G networks and cut latency, or delays, to less than one-thousandth of a second from one-hundredth of a second in 4G, the Federal Communications Commission has said.
White House officials said they do not support any effort to nationalize the 5G network. A leaked document in January suggested the administration was considering the idea.
“We will prioritize efforts to accelerate the private sector’s development of 5G, so that the American people can reap the rewards of this incredible technology,” White House adviser Michael Kratsios told reporters on Thursday.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Andrea Ricci)
