i3 - January/February 2019 - 76

Policy
P O L I CY I N ACT I O N

America Can Win
the 5G Race

he first deployments of 5G technology
are starting to take place. The defining
characteristics of 5G include faster
speed, greater capacity and lower latency compared to existing 4G LTE technology. 5G is a
key requirement to fully enable emerging technologies like self-driving cars and smart cities.
It also has the potential to revolutionize residential broadband and close the digital divide.
Jennifer Taylor, vice president of U.S. Jobs
at CTA, recently sat down with Brendan Carr, a
commissioner of the Federal Communications
Commission, to discuss the impact of 5G on
the future of America's workforce.
Q We are seeing China and countries in

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019

Q What are countries like China or
countries in Europe doing differently
from America?
A For 5G to succeed, there are two
things to consider. One is spectrum. The
U.S. is in pretty good shape in regard to
spectrum; we've freed up more spectrum
than any other country in the world. The
second piece is the infrastructure challenge. We need hundreds of thousands of
new cell sites to support 5G, in addition
to many miles of new fiber. This is something the U.S. has been heavily focusing
on, but since 2015, China has deployed
around 375,000 new cell sites. In the
U.S., we've done about 30,000 in that
time. And China right now is deploying
about 460 new cell sites a day, 12 times
our pace in the U.S. So, the FCC has been
focusing on some regulatory reforms and
cutting some red tape, so we can free up
the private sector for the massive ramp
up in construction and deployment work
we need to make sure we're also on the
leading edge of 5G.

Q What are the opportunities you see
regarding broadband, and what is the FCC
doing to close the digital divide, especially
in rural areas of our country?
A That's a challenge. I've spent a lot of
time outside of D.C., and in my first year
on this job I've had the chance to visit
and do events in 23 states. I was in a small
town, Blue River Township in Indiana, at
a small family farm owned by a woman
named Linda Muegge. She told us how
she recently got a fiber optic broadband
connection to her home and it drastically
changed the economic profile of her family. Her son, Chris, who recently graduated
from college at Purdue, got an advanced
degree in cattle nutrition.
Normally someone in Chris' position,
leaving Blue River Township, would have
to go to a big city to find a job where he
could put those skill sets to good use.
But instead, with the fiber connection
at the farm, he moved back home so he
could help at the farm while also launching an online consulting business, where
I T I S I N N O VAT I O N

iStock/Getty Images

Europe taking strategic steps to advance
in 5G. Why is it so important for America to
win the 5G race?
A We're very excited at the FCC about
this transition to 5G. Essentially, 5G is
the upgrade to the wired and wireless
network that will enable all the tech we're
seeing today on the show floor at CES -
everything from autonomous vehicles to
telehealth applications. The Wall Street
Journal has called this transition to 5G
transformative, not just from a technological perspective, but from an economic
perspective. The U.S. has been dominant
in the tech space - particularly in the
past 10 years - because we won the race
to 4G. The challenge now is that there are
countries around the world that view 5G
as a chance to potentially flip the script
and exert economic dominance for the
next decade. This 5G race is going to
be something that requires about $275
billion in private sector investment, but
ultimately, if we win, it's going to create
about three million new jobs. To accomplish this, we have work to do from a
regulatory perspective, but also from a
workforce development perspective.

i3 - January/February 2019

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