President Donald Trump's reelection team is backing a controversial plan to give the government a role in managing America's next-generation 5G wireless networks — bucking the free market consensus view of his own administration and sparking wireless industry fears of nationalization.

The plan — embraced by Trump 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale and adviser Newt Gingrich — would involve the government taking 5G airwaves and designing a system to allow for sharing them on a wholesale basis with wireless providers. The idea is also being pushed by a politically connected wireless company backed by venture capitalist Peter Thiel that could stand to benefit.


It's already getting pushback from industry, which dismisses the concept as untested and unworkable.

But the Trump campaign is now fully embracing the model in a bid to woo rural voters who have long lacked decent internet service because wireless companies don't have a financial incentive to offer affordable broadband to all Americans, including those outside the biggest cities.

“A 5G wholesale market would drive down costs and provide access to millions of Americans who are currently underserved,” Kayleigh McEnany, national press secretary for Trump’s 2020 campaign, told POLITICO. “This is in line with President Trump’s agenda to benefit all Americans, regardless of geography."

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Trump campaign advisers aren't offering an explanation for why their position is so different from the one embraced by the Trump administration, and they say they have no financial motivations for their stance.


But the campaign's position sets up a likely policy fight with key Trump administration figures who preach an industry-led 5G vision, including White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow and members of the FCC.

The issue of government's potential role in 5G — which promises super-fast internet speeds seen as critical to U.S. economic and technology development — has already proven to be an explosive one.

At the beginning of 2018, a leaked memo from the National Security Council, which envisioned the Trump administration building a nationwide 5G network to compete with China, faced immediate rejection from the wireless industry, every FCC commissioner and lawmakers of both parties, who were alarmed at the prospect of a heavy government hand in the sector.

The White House at the time never explicitly ruled out the nationalization concept, with press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders saying "there are a lot of things on the table." But administration officials still scrambled to reassure the powerful wireless sector, holding a conference on 5G later in the year where Kudlow said "the White House is officially behind this free-enterprise, free-market approach."


The Trump campaign is now touting a different flavor of potential government intervention into 5G, one championed by a wireless company known as Rivada Networks.

Rivada, which counts Trump ally Thiel among its investors, is lobbying for the administration to take wireless spectrum from the Defense Department and use a third-party operator — ideally Rivada — to make those airwaves available to users who need it on a rolling wholesale basis, much like in the electricity market.

This model would differ from the current system where wireless carriers like AT&T and Verizon typically hold long-term spectrum leases secured at FCC auctions. Veteran GOP operative Karl Rove, a Rivada adviser, is helping to cultivate an informal network of advocates to push the concept.

Rivada's influence operation has sparked speculation about its role in the Trump campaign's thinking. But Parscale, one of the most vocal Trump surrogates backing the government-managed 5G plan, has no financial interest in Rivada or 5G, according to the campaign. Gingrich, who wrote an op-ed praising the "public-private" 5G model, also said he's not getting paid by the company, but finds what it wants to do "fascinating."

Rivada has requested meetings with Michael Kratsios, deputy assistant to the president for technology policy, which he has declined, according to an administration official. Kratsios previously worked for Thiel.

Trump himself issued a pair of enigmatic tweets on 5G in late February, which failed to clear up where he stands on the government's role in the next-generation networks.

“I want 5G, and even 6G, technology in the United States as soon as possible,” Trump said. “It is far more powerful, faster, and smarter than the current standard. American companies must step up their efforts, or get left behind.”

Asked about the Trump campaign's views on 5G, the White House Office of Science and Technology policy said it stands behind the current, industry-led approach. "The Trump Administration embraces any and all private sector-driven efforts to boost innovation in the United States for deploying secure 5G networks," a spokesperson said.


The FCC declined to comment.

CTIA, which represents wireless heavyweights like AT&T and Verizon, has already sought to counter the growing talk of government involvement in 5G.

"Instead of trying to ‘out-China, China’, as some proponents of a nationalized ‘wholesale’ network monopoly suggested, we reaffirmed our faith in that most American of principles — competition in a free and open market," the trade group wrote in a blog post last month.

Rivada has fallen short in its efforts to shape government policy before, despite attracting high-profile advocates including Rove and former Govs. Jeb Bush and Martin O’Malley, who serve on the board. The company failed to make inroads with the multibillion-dollar U.S. public safety communications network FirstNet, first losing the government contract to build the network to AT&T and then failing to convince states to defect to Rivada's version of the project.

But Rivada CEO Declan Ganley is maintaining a combative message when it comes to the 5G plan his company backs, blasting incumbent telecom giants as “parasites” bilking the American public.

“America should have some of the cheapest bandwidth and data available in the world and instead it’s got the most expensive pricing in the world,” he said in an interview. Of the big wireless companies, he added: “They are the ninjas of regulatory capture. … They can hire 20,000 lobbyists to our one. We’ll never out-lobby them, but the numbers don’t lie. Americans are being hosed.”

Robert Spalding, the former National Security Council official who drafted the White House memo on 5G nationalization and is now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, sees benefits in the 5G model championed by the Trump campaign. But while it may be useful as messaging to rural voters, he said, the idea as a practical matter is dead on arrival because it would require the military to share its airwaves.

"I just don’t see it actually coming to fruition because at the end of the day, an agency like the Department of Defense would have to step up and say this is absolutely required for national security," he said. “I know that DoD has no interest in using any kind of department resources in making this a priority.”