The US government should consider building and operating a national 5G mobile network in order to boost security, reduce reliance on Chinese equipment, and to ensure that the US retains a technological advantage over other countries, according to a leaked memo from the White House's National Security Council (NSC).

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Trump declares TikTok, WeChat “national emergency,” preps bans View more stories The memo and a related slide deck, published yesterday by Axios, suggests that the Trump administration is considering a surprising shift from privately operated networks to nationalized infrastructure. The presentation carries the title, "Secure 5G: The Eisenhower National Highway System for the Information Age."

Industry lobby groups and all five members of the Federal Communications Commission have already criticized the suggestion, saying that the US should continue to rely on private industry and that carriers are already building 5G networks.

A government-run network could raise civil liberties concerns. Private mobile carriers have already been willing to help the National Security Agency conduct surveillance of Internet traffic, but a government-run network could eliminate the need to gain cooperation from private companies.

The safety of US Internet users isn't always the government's top concern, as we've seen in a separate issue that pertains to consumer devices rather than broadband networks. For years, US law enforcement officials have been trying to convince Apple and other tech companies to weaken the encryption that keeps private communications private.

The NSC memo says a new network is needed both to prevent China from winning a technology "arms race" and to deter attacks from state adversaries.

The government could try to boost security by imposing requirements on private companies rather than building a network itself. But the memo claims that a government-secured network would be "[t]he best network from a technical, performance, and security perspective."

"If USG [US government] secures the network, then much like the Eisenhower Highway System national security becomes an important driver for deployment," the memo says.

The memo does not suggest nationalizing the existing 4G networks and says that carriers could still build separate 5G networks with spectrum that isn't needed for the hypothetical government-run system.

Here are some highlights from the slide deck and memo:











The full documents are available here.

5G is the new “Gutenberg press”

Internally, the memo's conclusions might have been scaled back already.

"A source familiar with the document's drafting told Axios this is an 'old' draft and a newer version is neutral about whether the US government should build and own [the network]," the news site reported.

Multiple White House officials stressed that the idea "had merely been floated by a staff member, [and is] not a reflection of some imminent, major policy announcement—and probably might never be," Recode reported.

But the "old" version of the memo is the only one that has been made public so far. The memo dramatically claims that the move from 4G to 5G is such "a fundamental shift in wireless infrastructure" that it is "more like the invention of the Gutenberg press than the move from 3G to 4G."

"Whoever leads in technology and market share for 5G deployment will have a tremendous advantage towards ushering in the Massive Internet of Things, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and thus the commanding heights of the information domain," it continues.

The memo author is concerned about America's reliance on technology from Chinese vendors, particularly Huawei and ZTE. "Notably, on the current trajectory, 5G in the US will debut on equipment from just this small group of companies, which would include Chinese suppliers unless informal restrictions against their inclusion in national networks are maintained for 5G networks," the memo says.

Earlier this month, reports said that AT&T backed out of a distribution deal with Huawei because of "political pressure" from US lawmakers. US officials have been raising concerns about possible espionage and attacks from companies alleged to have ties to the Chinese government for years now.