InsideSources

The U.S. airline industry, which is notorious for delayed flights, is now trying to postpone the takeoff of America’s 5G communications network. And — as is often the case with the airlines —it’s not exactly clear what this delay is all about.

On Monday, top airline executives sent a letter to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg claiming the launch of 5G could ground flights and leave passengers stranded. They are asking the Biden administration to take immediate action to block the launch.

AT&T and Verizon plan to roll out their new C-Band 5G service on Wednesday.

The dawn (or maybe pre-dawn) of the 5G age was initially set for January 5. But at the last minute, the Department of Transportation and FAA asked cell carriers to hold off for two weeks. At the time, Buttigieg cited aviation safety concerns as the reason for the delay.

While both companies honored Buttigieg’s request, they might be forgiven for muttering, “What the… Really? Now?” And for suspecting that the airlines are running a hustle on their industry.

Last year, the major wireless carriers paid $82 billion to the federal government to operate their 5G services at 3.7 GHz in the C-band of the electromagnetic spectrum. But just as the carriers were about to hit “start” on 5G, several airline industry groups began shouting that C-band wireless communications might interfere with–and potentially even disable aircraft equipment–that operates on a nearby frequency. In particular, airline officials said the signal could interfere with the plane’s radio altimeter.

According to the airline industry advocacy group, Airlines for America, concerns about possible 5G interference and the resulting degradation of onboard systems could result in massive disruption of both passenger and cargo air traffic, including the elimination of flights when it is dark or foggy. Other flights might need to be rerouted to avoid airports with high levels of 5G activity.

And the airlines want you to know this is not an 11th-hour objection. Airlines for America says it has been banging on the counter since 2018, but its concerns were ignored by federal regulators until recently. The two-week 5G postponement was necessary, it insists, because the industry currently has its hands full managing air travel during the current COVID-19 spike.

The telecoms’ response is “Science!” They point out 5G wireless stations have been operating near airports in Europe and Asia for years, and planes are not falling out of the sky.

“Each day U.S. aircraft, carrying thousands of U.S. citizens, land in these countries without incident and with no expression of concern by the FAA or foreign aviation regulators. This is the classic dog that did not bark. The laws of physics are no different in the United States than in Europe or Asia,” says CTIA, the wireless trade group.

Former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler noted in a Brookings article that the current techno-flap is nothing new. Cellphones initially interfered with both hearing aids and pacemakers. The long-term answer in both cases was better shielding of those devices, not restricting customers’ access to wireless service.

Wheeler, who is also a former president of the CTIA, additionally mentioned speculation that the airlines’ last-minute scare campaign is designed to pressure the wireless industry or the federal government into paying for updated radio altimeters. To avoid the possibility of disrupted air travel, Wheeler notes, the government could pay for the altimeters from the 5G spectrum auction proceeds or impose an additional spectrum-use tariff on the wireless companies to compensate the airlines.

Of course, as Wheeler notes, it is unclear why someone else should have to foot the bill to replace the multi-billion-dollar airline industry’s outdated technology. Unless that someone wants to avoid a protracted court battle.

While there is no telling how the courts might rule in such a hypothetical case, the matter would no doubt take years to resolve.

That delay would be a bummer for America’s wireless carriers and consumers, but business as usual for the airlines.

As warnings from tech experts, lawmakers and regulators grow louder over perceived national security threats posed by Chinese telecom company Huawei, smaller, rural telecom carriers worry about the cost of ripping out and replacing Huawei equipment and worry Congress won’t do enough to help.

Almost immediately after President Trump signed an executive order prohibiting U.S. telecom companies from doing business with foreign companies “where the transaction involves any property in which any foreign country or a national thereof has any interest” last week, the Commerce Department placed Huawei and its 70 subsidiaries on a trade blacklist, effectively prohibiting telecom companies from doing business with them.

The Commerce Department also issued a 90-day license for companies doing business with Huawei to continue business and take time to reorder their supply chains.

After the license expires, there will be a “domino effect,” said Carri Bennet, legal counsel for the Rural Wireless Association.

“Once that [Commerce Department] license expires, then we run into problems about ordering spare parts, getting the network expanded, software upgrades,” she told InsideSources. “The executive order impacts not just small rural [telecom] carriers, but all kinds of businesses like companies producing things in China, cloud computing, data retrieval, broadband internet access and telecom services.”

Then there’s the  National Defense Authorization Act of 2019, which prohibits the federal government from doing business with Huawei and ZTE — according to Bennet, the reauthorization “extended to any kinds of loans or grants that go to companies that do business with Huawei or ZTE. It was intended to also reach the Universal Service Fund (USF). My members are using the USF to support their networks.”

In other words, many smaller, rural carriers using Huawei equipment now don’t have funding to continue broadband investment to close the digital divide and eventually deploy 5G.

(The Big Four, which are AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon, do not use Huawei equipment.)

Some of the affected carriers met with senators Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) last week to explain how the Huawei ban could devastate small businesses, 5G expansion and deployment efforts, and cripple Americans’ ability to get broadband access.

Then, a bipartisan group of senators including Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Ed Markey (D-N.J.) and Warner produced a bill to establish a Supply Chain Security Trust Fund of $700 million to help small carriers rip out and replace Huawei equipment.

“5G networks need to be robust and secure, and not rely on equipment or services that pose a national security risk,” Wicker said upon the bill’s announcement. “This legislation would ensure continued American leadership in advanced wireless technology deployment. It offers relief to those providers that need to replace foreign equipment within their networks while augmenting the availability of secure 5G networks for all Americans.”

But Bennet said $700 million is not nearly enough.

“Is $700 million enough? No, it’s not, I don’t know where they came up with $700 million,” she said. “If there was anything bad in their networks, they would be the first to want to rip it out and replace it. They’re patriots, they’re upstanding citizens, and now they’re in this state of flux. They don’t know what they should be doing and they’re not getting any good guidance from the government on this. They’re just like, ‘What do we do, what do we do?’ They’re inundated with the press and they’re trying to get back to work and saying, ‘I have a business to run.’ These communities are really upset.”

At a 5G event hosted by the American Enterprise Institute on Wednesday, tech experts and an ambassador from the State Department discussed how U.S. companies have been asleep at the wheel when it comes to telecom supply chain cybersecurity, and defended the federal government’s push to ban Huawei completely.

“A year ago I think people would have said, ‘Yes cybersecurity is important to 5G, but wouldn’t have realized there’s a supply chain aspect to 5G,'” said Deputy Assistant Secretary for Cyber and International Communications Policy at the US State Department, Robert Strayer, at the event. “There’s no way to have any untrustworthy components in the network without having a serious vulnerability inserted into that network. It’s really important government talks to telecom operators so they fully understand what’s at stake here. It’s really a decision for the government to make about the national security of their citizens.”

But such fast moves from the feds could give small telecom companies and industries relying on the internet of things (IoT) — like the agricultural industry — whiplash.

“We have farmers who have purchased tractors that cost tens of thousands of dollars that they’re trying to pay down on that may not be able to operate because they’re connected to the internet [because of a ripple effect from the Huawei ban],” Bennet told InsideSources.  “They use IoT for when they plant the seeds, how they plant the seeds, getting the crops in, getting them planted, all that stuff. Some are also using it for monitoring livestock.”

Huawei filed a legal motion in U.S. federal court Wednesday morning protesting the U.S. contracting ban, calling it unconstitutional and an abuse of legislative power against a company without a fair hearing or trial.

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2018 was a big year for tech: besides a multitude of scandals from the likes of Facebook and Google, lawmakers and regulators at the state and federal level explored consumer data privacy, cybersecurity, election security, fintech and net neutrality legislation, to name a few.

Going into the new year with a Democratic House, experts expect to see movement on a privacy law, maybe some antitrust action taken against Big Tech, as well as maybe, finally, an election security bill and a symbolic push to legislate net neutrality.

Here’s a quick rundown of what tech trends to expect in five key areas in 2019:

1. Big banks will buy up fintechs, and expect a fintech IPO boom.

In 2018, the Department of the Treasury called for the regulation of fintech and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) announced it would allow fintech companies to apply for national bank charters — despite states’ efforts to lure fintechs into state bank charters.

But there’s been very little movement on the bank charter front, most likely because big banks are buying up fintech companies and will likely continue to do so in 2019, according to CB Insights, a research and analysis firm focusing on tech and innovation.

As big banks struggle to innovate, strategies are increasingly shifting to buy up the innovative startups that could soon become competitors.

The fintechs that don’t get acquired may start issuing IPOs, as up until this point the fintech industry has mainly focused on venture backing.

2. Congress will crack down on Big Tech with privacy law, potentially antitrust action.

Experts expect Democrats and Republicans alike to push a privacy legislation in the next congressional session. Some legislators have already hinted at their own drafts.

Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and the Center for Democracy and Technology have already released their own consumer-centric bills that focus on issues like consumer data protection and privacy, but they’re the first in a tidal wave of drafts and suggestions expected to flood Congress in the next few months.

The big point of tension will be between industry needs and safe harbors vs. consumer protections, and right now it’s unclear which way Congress will sway.

One thing both Democrats and Republicans agree on at the moment is the potential for antitrust action against some of the big tech companies, like Facebook and Google. The Trump administration has hinted at potential antitrust action, but breaking up the companies may be difficult to do in court given the current economic understanding of competition and consumer harm.

Regardless, Congress and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will likely look for ways to stop tech companies from getting quite so big and accumulating so much social influence.

3. More federal agencies will crack down on cybersecurity.

Numerous reports released over the last year show how terrible federal agencies are at protecting themselves from cybercriminals — and even the more vigilant agencies, like the Department of Defense, aren’t doing that well.

A recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found that some of the biggest agencies are doing better on the cybersecurity front, but there’s still a long way to go, and Congress knows this. The House Energy and Commerce Committee already released a cybersecurity strategy report detailing how it hopes to tackle cyber problems in 2019.

Thanks to a new law establishing a cybersecurity agency within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), regulators may be able to help federal agencies improve as well as hold them accountable for poor cybersecurity.

Even the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced it would make cybersecurity a priority in 2019 to better protect financial markets.

These efforts don’t come a moment too soon as cyberattacks continue to ramp up and become more sophisticated and complex, according to the McAfee Labs 2019 Threat Predictions Report.

4. The 5G fight will escalate.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has been working hard to allow the telecom industry to launch 5G wireless networks, but municipalities are fighting for the right to regulate 5G deployment themselves.

Part of the problem is the telecom industry needs more spectrum and there are still roadblocks to getting what it needs. It’s shaping up to be a tense year for the industry as it seeks to launch quickly and compete with China and other nations.

5. The net neutrality fight will continue with legislative efforts and lawsuits.

Many activist groups on both sides of the debate have been pushing for Congress to legislate net neutrality and end the ping-pong of rules from the FCC once and for all, but even if net neutrality-focused Democrats pass a bill in the House, it will likely die in the Senate or on the president’s desk.

Still, symbolic attempts to reinstate hard-line net neutrality rules will be popular with some liberal voters and could set the stage for future net neutrality legislation if Democrats win the White House in 2020.

If legislative efforts don’t work, a few pending court cases could result in reinstatement of the FCC’s Title II net neutrality rules.

First there’s Mozilla v. FCC, for which the first oral arguments are scheduled for Feb. 1, 2019, and then there’s the Department of Justice’s lawsuit against the state of California for passing its own net neutrality rules, for which oral arguments have not yet been scheduled.

Experts disagree on how the net neutrality debate will shake out: some say net neutrality’s days are numbered, but others say the court cases could save it.

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Industry leaders and federal regulators are convinced 5G will radically transform the internet and the economy, but is the hype getting ahead of the tech?

Last week the 5G hype ramped up with Samsung debuting its 5G technology and POLITICO hosting a 5G event with industry leaders and federal regulators in Washington, D.C.—hype inspired by the extremely high speed 5G makes possible.

But how fast is 5G?  According to Qualcomm’s tests of the technology, download speeds are at about 100 megabits per second (Mbps) compared to just 8 Mbps with LTE. Data downloads will be 100 times faster than 4G.

One of the areas where 5G speeds are creating the most excitement — and arguably has the most potential — is autonomous vehicles (AVs).

At the POLITICO event, for example, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Assistant Policy Counsel of Chamber Technology Engagement Center (C_TEC) Jordan Crenshaw said that 5G is a “top consideration” for AV developers because 4G networks don’t have fast enough download/upload speeds to support the connections AVs need.  AVs require a strong wireless connection in order to adopt data processing speeds that can imitate a human driver, Forbes reported.

According to Qualcomm, 5G’s “high throughput and ultra-reliable low latency communication (URLLC)” theoretically allows cars to communicate with each other “without dependency or reliance on wide area network coverage.”  AVs must be able to communicate with each otherin order for them to safely use the road.

“[5G] will enable autonomous vehicles to directly share their perception of the road, road conditions and surroundings, with each other and with road infrastructure in an efficient manner,” Qualcomm said in a blog post. “Autonomous vehicles rely on several different kinds of sensors to be able to detect and infer their surroundings and road conditions. While sensors such as radar, and camera systems are essential, these sensors are limited by their line-of-sight (LOS) operation. [5G] direct communication complements the capabilities of these sensors by providing 360-degree non-LOS (NLOS) awareness, extending a vehicle’s ability to detect farther down the road — even at blind intersections or in poor weather conditions.”

AVs are just one use case of how 5G could transform various industries, of course.  It could also enable and encourage the telehealth movement, which seeks to provide remote care and assistance via video call to consumers. Smartphones will have better video streaming, lower latency rates and extended battery life. In fact, 5G speeds are expected to be so fast that they will surpass cable and satellite internet, effectively allowing mobile telecomm companies like AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon to compete with the likes of Charter Communications, Comcast and other local internet service providers (ISPs).

And then there’s the economic impact of this new level of technology: The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) believes that its plan to rollout 5G nationwide will save more than $2 billion “in unnecessary fees” and stimulate $2.5 billion in investment. And economists who’ve reviewed these estimates agree—If 5G lives up to the hype.

Not everyone is so sure that it can. Projected speeds of new wireless rollouts are rarely match reality. The peak rate of wireless users are usually only 15 percent of the projected peak rate, according to industry experts, and Wi-Fi routers in homes often only offer one third to half of the advertised speed.

If actual 5G speeds don’t reach the expected speeds, then 5G won’t enable AVs.

And then there’s the infrastructure problem. Self-driving cars can’t “self-drive” beyond the range of the network, as Motherboard reported in a recent article.

“The current geographical disparities in internet access mean it’s probably not going to happen for at least another 15–20 years,” they conclude.

According to a report from ZDNet, the key with 5G is reliability. It doesn’t matter how much faster the 5G speeds are, if they aren’t consistent and reliable, AVs and other 5G-empowered industry advancements won’t get far.

Then there’s the issue of actually processing the data 5G-connected sensors on cars will provide. It’s one thing to have a super-connected car, and quite another to know how to have the processing bandwidth to handle what it is providing.

Some industry analysts are skeptical 5G will be anything more than a “mobile upgrade:” Barclays analysts doubt, for example, that 5G will replace broadband internet in homes and businesses without a dramatic increase in investment.

It’s temping for industry innovators to oversell the promises of a new technology like 5G. Based on the current data, the right word to describe its impact is likely “evolution” rather than “revolution.”  But if comes close to living up to the hype, it will make a major impact on our economy, our workplaces and our daily lives.

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At a panel hosted by Health IT Now on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, telehealth innovators gathered to discuss how 5G could dramatically improve telehealth offerings for Americans.

5G is the next generation of wireless technology, and according to Qualcomm’s simulated tests, could provide instantaneous download and upload speeds and data transfer speeds, which are necessary for the kinds of services telehealth provides.

In short, telehealth allows patients to connect virtually with doctors, communicating via video chat or real-time imaging instead of trekking to a physical doctor’s office or if the patient is unable to easily leave his or her home. But telehealth services require a lot of bandwidth in order to allow patients and doctors to effectively communicate.

Many of the panelists said 5G can provide the bandwidth necessary to expand telehealth services to communities and help provide healthcare services to those who may be unable to attend a physical doctor’s office.

“These lightning fast speeds are critical to telehealth because when you’re downloading images as a doctor (you need clear, fast images) to make a correct diagnosis because lives are on the line,” said Michael Romano, senior vice president of industry affairs and business development for the NTCA-Rural Broadband Association, at the panel. “We want to optimize that care.”

Panelist Meghan Conroy founded and runs CaptureProof, a “HIPAA-compliant app to capture, compare and share medical photos and video asynchronously to enable doctor-to-doctor and doctor-to-patient communication.”

CaptureProof could allow a patient to go over MRI results with his or her doctor from home, which can make a huge difference for patients who may be physically unable to travel.

“I believe in the power of asynchronous telemedicine,” Conroy said. “We have a hugely powerful tool (video and imaging communication) that has been used socially but hasn’t been able to be applied to medicine.”

Lawmakers and the Federal Communications Commission are already working to accelerate 5G adoption. Last month, Senators John Thune (R-SD) and Brian Schatz (D-HI) introduced the STREAMLINE Small Cell Deployment Act (S. 3157) which would accelerate the widespread adoption of the “small cells” necessary for 5G connectivity. Small cells — which Romano said are about the size of a pizza box — can be attached on cell towers to provide a 5G wireless connection. On Tuesday, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr stated that he believed encouraging 5G adoption to increase access to telehealth was an area where the FCC could help.

“Healthcare is our largest industry but it is our least productive industry as far as our bang for the buck,” said Bret Swanson, president of technology research firm Entropy Economics LLC, at the panel on Tuesday. “It’s an extremely costly thing. If we can turn healthcare from a productivity lagger into a leader, into an innovation industry, we can get more value and better capability for less money, serve patients better at less cost, and could help boost our overall economic growth rates.”

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Federal Communications Commission (FCC) members, senators, mobile carriers, and private sector leaders think 5G could solve the rural broadband problem and improve healthcare for rural Americans because 5G has the capacity to maximize internet speed and responsiveness and advance a new healthcare trend: telehealth.

Despite 5G’s capabilities — touted by many experts as the bringer of a digital revolution that will enable autonomous vehicles, widespread Internet of Things (IoT) adoption and remotely controlled industrial machinery — broadband infrastructure is so complicated that it may not be able to substantially advance telehealth efforts anytime soon.

Telehealth encompasses a wide range of services including doctors video-calling patients, patients sending doctors photos of injuries or ailments for prompt diagnosis, and even doctors going over X-Ray and MRI images with patients via video communication platforms like CaptureProof.

For rural patients, telehealth services can make a huge difference in their quality of life. Instead of driving a long way to visit a physical doctor’s office, remote and rural patients can converse with doctors on their laptop or smartphone.

Just a few weeks ago, FCC commissioner Brendan Carr launched a $100 million Connected Care Program with Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) to evaluate how telehealth programs might benefit low-income Americans, especially veterans and those living in rural areas.

At a presentation hosted by the Hudson Institute Tuesday morning, Carr said the FCC wants to support telehealth initiatives and believes expanding 5G to empower telehealth initiatives is an opportunity for the FCC to “step in and help.”

Michael Romano, senior vice president of industry affairs and business development for the NTCA-Rural Broadband Association, described several telehealth pilot projects at a panel hosted by Health IT Now on Tuesday.

One in McKee, Kentucky allows veterans to access a Virtual Living Room/VALOR portal through the local Jackson County Library, “which provides free access for veterans to Veterans Administration telehealth.”

Sitka CEO Kelly Mellard described to panel attendees how her company Sitka can “compress the cycle of care” for getting MRI results from days or weeks to hours via video and real-time imaging communication services.

“What we think is really important — and 5G can do — is deliver the asynchronous care,” Mellard said. “It improves patient literacy and progresses the care cycle.”

But telehealth services — especially ones involving MRI images — inherently require a lot of bandwidth to handle video and images. In rural areas, this is a significant challenge, as much of the broadband infrastructure in rural America is copper wiring, which struggles to handle sharp increases in downloads by Americans increasingly watching more Netflix and cat videos.

To get an idea for how much video Americans are consuming via the internet, Cisco estimates that by 2020, internet provider (IP) video traffic will account for 82 percent of all internet traffic, according to a research paper by broadband engineering and consulting company Vantage Point Solutions.

In theory, 5G could dramatically increase data transfer speeds and substantially improve connectivity (according to Qualcomm tests), but Vantage Point Solutions pointed out in its paper that “actual throughput capacity for wireless users is often only 15 percent of the peak data connection rate — although the peak rate is the speed that providers promote.”

But telehealth advocates are convinced 5G can augment telehealth services for rural Americans.

“These lightning fast speeds are critical to telehealth because when you’re downloading images as a doctor (because you need clear, quickly-uploaded images) to make a correct diagnosis because lives are on the line,” said Health IT Now CEO Joel White at the panel on Tuesday. “We want to optimize that care.”

Lawmakers are already working to accelerate 5G adoption. Last month, senators John Thune (R-SD) and Brian Schatz (D-HI) introduced the STREAMLINE Small Cell Deployment Act (S. 3157) which would accelerate the widespread adoption of the “small cells” necessary for 5G connectivity.

Small cells — which Romano said are about the size of a pizza box — can be attached on cell towers to provide a 5G wireless connection.

But 5G also needs deep fiber networks in order to reach its potential, and therein lies the rub.

According to Deloitte, 5G requires “greater network densification” in order to provide the maximized internet speed and responsiveness touted by mobile carriers.

“​Despite the demand and economic imperative for fiber deployment, access networks in the United States lack the fiber density to support the bandwidth advancements necessary to improve the pace of innovation and economic growth,” a Deloitte article reads. “Without more deep fiber, carriers will be unable to support the projected 4x increase in mobile data traffic between 2016 and 2021.”

But many rural areas still don’t have fiber optic cables to provide internet access, which means they may be unable to receive 5G access without an increase in infrastructure investment.

While mobile carriers like AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon may be able to dip into the broadband market with 5G in more densely populated, urban areas stocked with expansive fiber networks and cell towers, serving rural communities will take longer.

Still, companies will be making investments in these areas, and initiatives from internet service providers (ISPs) like Charter Communications, are working to overhaul current broadband infrastructure.

“5G and fiber are complementary pistons in this engine,” Romano said. “You need densification. This is going to require a lot more investment by firms like Verizon and ours. We’re going to need to make sure the fiber is there.”

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With the release of Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai’s proposal to roll back regulations classifying broadband internet as a utility under Title II of the 1934 Communications Act, many are wondering what the future holds when it comes to both innovating and expanding wireless and broadband infrastructure to rural areas and communities, like those found in Iowa and across the U.S.

During the debates leading up to broadband’s classification under Title II, between 2011 and 2015, trends in wired and wireless infrastructure spending were down 20-30 percent, about $30-$40 billion annually, according to George Ford, chief economist of the Phoenix Center. It’s suspected this decrease is closely tied to the threat of the new regulations. Others have found a continued decline in investment since the rules came into effect.

Peter Rysavy, president of Rysavy Research, LLC, a consulting firm that has specialized in wireless technology since 1993, believes that the lack of spending has slowed growth in technological advancements when it comes to creating faster networks and the development of 5G technology.

“The last couple of years, with the ban on paid prioritization and uncertainty on being unable to limit prioritization,” Rysavy said, “innovators haven’t taken advantage of what these networks are capable of.”

While the reclassification of broadband under Title I won’t directly impact laying infrastructure for broadband in rural communities, Rysavy believes that the easing of regulatory oversight will benefit the development of 5G technology, which may be a solution to the lack of internet accessibility in these areas.

“With this new approach, there is the likelihood of 5G technology becoming more broadly realized and greatly commoditized,” Rysavy said. “The technology will be less expensive to extend, as it may improve rural markets. 5G is what we’ll have to be looking towards to what we’re seeing in the rural markets.”

Former FCC Commissioner Kathleen Abernathy (2001-2005) states that the regulations entailed in the Title I and Title II classifications aren’t the barrier to accessible broadband internet in these specific communities.

“I spent a lot of time in a wireless company looking at investing in broadband in rural parts of the U.S.,” Abernathy said. “Net neutraility isn’t going to help in building out these markets.”

Abernathy, a senior executive at Frontier Communications in 2010, explained that lack of population density in rural America is the challenge, due to the fact that there is a low concentration of revenue to finance large projects like laying a fiber-optic line.

Instead, Abernathy says, the FCC’s efforts in Universal Service Funding (USF), specifically, the Connect America Fund (CAF) are the tools that will aid in delivering services to rural markets.

Expanding broadband access is a priority for FCC Chairman Pai, who hails from rural America himself. The commission is already in the process of examining wireless network capabilities by implementing another key universal service program in the Mobility Fund. This past February, the FCC adopted a Mobility Fund framework, allocating up to $4.53 billion over the next 10 years to advance 4G LTE services, primarily in rural areas.

According to data collected from the FCC and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) by broadbandnow.com (2016), Iowa ranks 38 in the nation for most-connected state, with 82 percent of people covered by some form of broadband, at an average statewide 23.2 Mega Bits Per Second (mbps) download speed. Conversely, 22 percent of the state is considered “underserved.”

According to Broadbandnow, there are approximately 541,000 Iowans without access to a wired connection capable of 25 mbps download speeds; approximately 517,000 Iowans have access to only one wired provider. Approximately 153,000 Iowans don’t have any wired internet providers available where they reside.

Betsy Huber, president of The National Grange — an organization that encourages families to band together to promote the economic and political well-being of the community and agriculture — and member of FCC’s Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee, said that she supports Pai’s proposal to rollback the Title II classification, but she also urges members to call legislators in support of the farm bill and infrastructure bills, which contain increased government funding for installing broadband in rural areas.

“The National Grange commends FCC Chairman Ajit Pai for his leadership on commonsense internet policy that will help provide critical broadband access to millions of more Americans and especially those in our rural communities,” she said in a statement when Pai released his plan.

“We really see it as an economic issue in rural areas,” Huber told InsideSources. “[Broadband] costs more to run service in sparsely populated areas. From the government standpoint, it’s important to make this happen sooner rather than later.”

The FCC has been steadily investing billions through the Connect America Fund (CAF). According to the FCC, as of 2015, $9 billion over the next six years will be used to fund infrastructure upgrades to over four million homes and businesses, and another $2 billion was dedicated over 10 years to help small ISPs. In Iowa alone, as of 2015, over $50 million in grants have been accepted (CenturyLink, Windstream, Frontier, and consolidated carriers) to expand broadband service to over 85,000 people across the state, according to Connect Iowa, a non-profit part of Connect Nation under the FCC. With an increase in funding to both lay broadband and increase cell services, the conditions could be just right for both providers and customers to take advantage of increased access to the internet.

Connect America Fund (CAF) Phase II commitments as of 2015 in Iowa. Courtesy Connected Nation.

Deploying 5G wireless speeds 10 to 100 times faster than 4G will cost $130 to $150 billion in fiber optic cabling alone over the next 5 to 7 years.

That’s according to a Deloitte study that found massive investment in fiber infrastructure will be required for the United States to reach its 5G potential.

“5G relies heavily on fiber and will likely fall far short of its potential unless the United States significantly increases its deep fiber investments,” the study reads. “Increased speed and capacity from 5G will rely on higher radio frequencies and greater network densification (i.e., increasing the number and concentration of cell sites and access points).”

That’s because 5G networks will make use of much higher frequency airwaves than current networks. New technologies including high-frequency millimeter wave bands and small cell networks will allow carriers to make use of the bands. They boast more than five times the space of lower bands used in 4G LTE.

While typical low-band spectrum used in contemporary networks is 5 to 10 MHz in width, 5G blocks will be more like 200 MHz across, and provide for more and faster backhaul carrying internet data to cell towers.

But those high-band signals are also weaker. Harnessing them requires small cell networks with smaller cell sites for bouncing and capturing the high-frequency millimeter waves harnessed in the upper bands, which have a difficult time moving through objects like the walls of a building.

To illustrate how crucial fiber is, Deloitte reports 90 percent of all internet traffic travels over wireline fiber, even if it ultimately terminates on a wireless device.

While the investment predicted by Deloitte is steep, the payoffs are big. Engineers and regulators predict 5G will increase download speeds from the current average of 10 to 20 Megabits per second to 100 Mbps to 1 Gigabit, drastically boosting download speeds for streaming high definition 4K video and enabling new tech like VR. Those speeds will be essential for deploying new technologies including autonomous vehicles like self-driving cars and smart-city energy grid and water systems.

Withholding that investment could be even more costly, according to the study. Falling short of fiber deployment will not only impede the deployment of 5G, it’ll mean a dwindling number of broadband provider choices for Americans the “widening of the digital divide.”

The divide is already significant. According to Deloitte’s figures, fiber passes less than one third of homes in the U.S., and only 39 percent of consumers have access to more than one broadband provider of 25 Mbps service — the minimum speed definition of broadband according to the Federal Communications Commission.

Only 38 percent of homes have a choice of two providers offering the same speeds, and just 61 percent of the population in rural communities. Even when speeds of 25 Mbps are available to rural customers, they can pay up to three times as much as suburban customers for the same speeds.

Approximately 10 million rural homes and 3 million urban and suburban homes can’t get broadband speeds at all.

Regulators at the FCC and lawmakers in Congress have offered up numerous recent proposals and rulemakings to incentivize broadband investment, but regulation won’t be enough according to the study, which encourages telecommunications providers and the businesses that rely on them to get creative.

As the average number of internet-connected devices in each home grows (with affluent households having up to 500 by 2022), Deloitte suggests broadband providers offer services to integrate and secure a network of household devices as a means of bringing in additional revenue for fiber deployment.

They also suggest over-the-top players like Netflix or Google-YouTube form partnerships with internet service providers to fund the build-out of networks they could partially own. Such services equally rely on growing bandwidth and benefit from faster speeds.

Lastly, the firm suggests letting carriers lease fiber as real estate to incentivize non-traditional investors to bring their assets to fiber.

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In an election cycle with a four-times failed business mogul and a paid Wall Street sympathizer as the candidates to lead an economy sporting dismal GDP growth and a middle class sinking into a wage chasm, it’s easy to understand why many Americans think the “American Dream” is no longer possible.

According to Stanford University economics Professor Raj Chetty, the American Dream — or the concept of economic mobility (in Chetty’s case, moving from the bottom fifth of the income distribution to the top fifth) — is easier to achieve outside the U.S., where an average of 7.5 percent of children born in the bottom fifth rise to the top fifth.

The UK average is 9 percent, in Denmark 11.7 percent, and in Canada 13.5 percent.

“Your chances of achieving the American Dream of climbing the income ladder look almost twice as high in Canada than in the United States,” Chetty said Thursday during the White House Frontiers Conference in Pittsburgh.

Chances aren’t the same across the board. De-identified data for all children born in the 1980s shows a rate of 18.5 percent in San Francisco — higher than Canada — while Atlanta and Charlotte have rates below 4.5 percent, “lower than any country for which we currently have data,” Chetty said.

Harnessing big data across cities with smart, internet-connected infrastructure is one solution, Roman Mars — host of the architecture and design podcast “99% Invisible” — told attendees, much the same way companies use big data to improve products.

“Cities can work pretty well, but there are always inefficiencies inside of a machine,” Mars described over a Radiolab-esque techno soundtrack. “At the heart of the smart city movement is this notion that if we measure it, we can optimize it. A smart city is interconnected with sensors everywhere that intake information. We crunch that big data and then we make the city adapt to what’s going on.”

Mars gave the example of smart parking meters, capable of sensing a parked car and dynamically adjusting the price when all parking is filled “so that one space is always available on every block so cars are no longer circling around looking for parking.”

“Thirty percent of cars at any moment are looking for parking, which makes everything in a city run slower. It’s a stupid waste, and in a smarter city, it can be eliminated,” Mars said. “Given enough data and enough flexibility, thousands of inefficiencies like parking can be minimized or eliminated completely.”

Mars said the same concept can be applied to human capital, which big data shows is being wasted in “huge” amounts because people aren’t being provided with the right infrastructure or they aren’t physically in the right place to succeed.

Using big data described by Chetty can help policymakers develop more programs to target and move families to areas with higher social mobility, and identify the environmental factors that make them better areas. Factors like segregation and industry have a significant impact on how children develop, Chetty explained, showing how equal ratios of races in Atlanta and Sacramento, but a much higher level in racial segregation in the former, correlate with a huge gap between Atlanta’s social mobility and Sacramento’s, well above 10 percent.

Data in Minneapolis, which has a strong medical device manufacturing industry, and San Francisco, the heart of Silicon Valley, shows kids from those areas have a higher chance of developing medical and computer patents respectively, while kids with high third-grade math scores and higher income parents are more likely to be future patent holders overall.

Such environmental data will help government agencies and private companies target internships and education programs in specific areas to bring kids into the environment they need, in addition to giving social workers, like Urban Strategies President Sandra Moore, the data they need to help low-income families nurture the environment kids need for success.

“The big data Raj is talking about really works for us as practitioners on the ground,” Moore said. “It feels big, but for us it really customizes what we need to know about children and families who need an opportunity to move, to climb onto the socioeconomic ladder.”

“We can’t move everyone,” she continued. “So there have to be ways to create in place some of the things that we see from his data are essential to people moving” like technologically innovative transportation and affordable housing.

Monitoring such data and implementing the infrastructure of the future in cities will require the broad deployment of 5G, the next generation of wireless networks, according to Richard Adler, president of Silicon Valley consulting firm People & Technology and author of “Preparing for a 5G World.”

5G has the potential to move 10 to 100 times faster than today’s 4G networks, speed essential to the growing internet of things and to automate in real-time advances like self-driving cars.

“It’s my hope that the discussion includes 5G networks that will be the foundation for many of the technological frontiers the president seeks to advance, including building smarter, more inclusive local communities, extending remote medical monitoring, leveraging big data, and addressing transportation challenges,” Adler said of the conference earlier in the week.

The FCC recently enacted regulatory changes to help wireless providers access the airwaves and deploy the dense network infrastructure required for 5G.

“The U.S. will have to densify its existing wireless network by deploying significantly more infrastructure including towers and large numbers of high performance small cells,” Adler told reporters. “And to make this happen, there will need to be expanded cooperation between public and private entities.”

The White House on Thursday announced its own support through the Department of Transportation with $165 million to help cities including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver, Houston, Pittsburgh, Buffalo and Marysville, Ohio develop smart city technology “targeted at relieving congestion and improving safety of urban transportation networks.”

The Obama administration announced a total of $300 million for science and technology initiatives, including $50 million to develop dense, small satellite deployment and $70 million to the National Institutes of Health to “help researchers better understand the brain and, ultimately, uncover the mysteries that hold the key to future scientific breakthroughs in areas such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, depression, and traumatic brain injury.”

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