Wireless carriers are fighting back against efforts to better map 5G wireless availability, worried that better data could deflate their 5G marketing hype.

To hear wireless carriers tell it, 5G is just short of magic. As the faster network standard is quickly and broadly deployed, carriers say 5G will result in a “fourth industrial revolution” that will change absolutely everything, resulting in smart cities and even smarter cancer cures. In reality, carriers have faced widespread criticism for overhyping not only what 5G can do, but where it’s actually available. Verizon’s early 5G launches have been criticized for being fast but barely available. AT&T has been ridiculed for overstating 5G availability by using bogus 5G phone icons. And while 5G coverage will improve over time, it will take many years to do so. Because it's been so overhyped, having an accurate map of actual 5G availability is going to be important.

Industry watchers say the wireless industry’s opposition has less to do with exposing sensitive data, and more to do with not wanting the industry’s shaky 5G marketing claims exposed. “The real reason is because 5G will be basically nowhere in a year from now,” Ernesto Falcon, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Motherboard. “Most estimates I've seen is barely 10 percent of Americans will have access to 5G in three years from now,” he said, pointing to wireless availability predictions from Cisco. Falcon said that while faster wireless is certainly a good thing, 5G still relies on fiber optic lines that feed cellular towers. These are the same fiber optic lines AT&T and Verizon stopped deploying to less affluent areas several years ago despite billions in subsidies and tax breaks. “The carriers have not figured out how to justify deploying dense fiber networks to support 5G after they willfully abandoned deploying fiber to the home to compete with cable,” Falcon said. Dana Floberg recently testified before Congress about America's terrible broadband maps and broadband availability on behalf of consumer group Free Press. She also suggested mobile carriers aren’t keen on having their 5G availability claims exposed.

“Right now, 5G is the technological equivalent of the emperor's new clothes,” she said. “It's the finest new technology, but no one can see it. Without maps that clarify where 5G service is offered at particular service standards, carriers have few checks on their claims about 5G's current reach and capabilities.”

Floberg noted that looming 5G availability has been widely used by the Trump administration to justify the obliteration of industry oversight and consumer protections, making data on where 5G really is all the more important.