Even before the COVD-19 pandemic forced us to live much of our lives “online,” the emergence of 5G technology was shaping up as one of the most critical waves of innovation that we have seen in our lifetimes. With all the excitement about the potential for 5G was the worry that America would lose the race for global 5G leadership to China. Fortunately, new developments from America’s most innovative companies shows that we are ready to compete (and win) on our terms — innovation.
5G — the 5th generation of wireless networking standards — will revolutionize our technological capabilities. With Internet speeds 100 times faster and more reliable than anything we have ever seen, 5G will make critical technologies like self-driving cars, drones, smart homes, smart cities, online learning and telemedicine a reality.
The last few months have demonstrated how critical fast and reliable connectivity is to our lives. Most Americans have been able to remotely do their jobs, visit their relatives, continue their studies and consult with their doctors. In a 5G world, the ability to do these things — and more — will be even greater. This will improve our lives and lead to millions of new jobs and trillions in wealth creation.
Who will win the race for 5G and dominate the industries of the future?
China is aggressively pushing for 5G domination largely through unlimited government support of its national champion, Huawei, to win that race. For our nation’s economic — and national — security it’s critical that we, not China, win the battle for 5G leadership.
Across the globe, Huawei is virtually giving away 5G hardware to other nations in order to gain a foot hold and dominate 5G delivery. They can do this with unlimited resources thanks to the Chinese government.
I argued a few months ago that while we need to beat China in this race, we will not do so by copying the Chinese model. Some in the US have claimed that we need a government-controlled network or that the federal government should directly invest in companies to help them compete with China.
In fact, those are the last things we need. What we need is for American companies to do what they do best — invest and innovate. They are doing just that. The wireless carriers already have extensive 5G networks underway. America’s leading tech giants have been investing heavily to develop the backbone of 5G — both the infrastructure and the networks.
In one of the most exciting developments, American companies (along with others) are coming together to out-innovate Huawei. In advancing a concept know as OpenRAN (Radio Access Networks), which is a more flexible software-based set of networks to deliver 5G, companies could overcome Huawei’s dominance of the 5G hardware space. The concept takes advantage of America’s traditional strength in software to offer a new model for 5G delivery. As Axios recently reported, “designing 5G more around software could make it cheaper and easier to deploy.”
In recent months, virtually all the leading US tech and telecom companies (along with some from allied nations in Europe, Japan and South Korea) came together to create the OpenRAN Policy Coalition to advance policies that support this concept. The coalition of over 30 companies, including AT&T, Verizon, Qualcomm, Oracle, Google, Amazon’s AWS, Facebook, Microsoft, and Samsung, will push for policies that advance the Open RAN concept. The coalescing of these key players here and across the world is a great signal that industry innovation and collaboration will take 5G deployment to the next level — and help win the race against China for 5G leadership. According to RCR Wireless, the Open RAN approach offers many benefits including, “breaking vendor lock-in, letting operators mix-and-match components, reducing TCO (total cost of ownership) and increasing performance.”
While we don’t want government-run 5G networks, the administration, Congress and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) can find ways to support and encourage this exciting trend through smart policies — and by getting government out of the way. Some members of Congress have proposed steering proceeds from FCC spectrum auctions to support R&D of open standards based 5G software technology. There has also been support for using the Department of Defense to test this open technology. These ideas, and others, are worth examining closely. Key officials in the White House, Congress and the FCC have begun to see the importance of innovative software-based approaches like OpenRAN or the related concept of Virtual RAN. Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council has spoken positively of the software cloud based approach. FCC Chair Ajit Pai recently tweeted that he has “made it a priority to focus on virtualized radio access networks as a secure, cost effective means of 5G deployment.”
Winning the race for global 5G leadership — and ensuring China does not dominate 5G — is one of the most critical challenges of our time. That battle will be won by free markets and innovation, not national champions or government run networks. Once again, American companies are showing us — and the world — they are ready to win this global innovation battle.
Steve Forbes is chairman and editor in chief of Forbes Media.