Trump Team Considers Nationalizing America's 5G Network (axios.com)

JoeyRox writes: "Trump national security officials are considering an unprecedented federal takeover of a portion of the nation's mobile network to guard against China, according to sensitive documents obtained by Axios." This is based on a PowerPoint presentation Axios has in their possession. Two options are described -- a national 5G network funded and built by the Federal government, or a mix of 5G networks built by existing wireless providers. A source suggests the first option is preferred and essential to protect against competition from China and "bad actors". The presentation suggests that a government-built network would then be leased out to carriers like AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile.
The PowerPoint presentation was produced by a senior National Security Council official, and argues that the move is necessary because "China has achieved a dominant position in the manufacture and operation of network infrastructure," and "China is the dominant malicious actor in the Information Domain."

It also suggests America could export its secure 5G technology to protect its allies, and "Eventually this effort could help inoculate developing countries against Chinese neo-colonial behavior."

Comments

Good

[sexconker]

This would in theory make carriers compete for customers everywhere, and increase signal availability and quality for everyone.

Re:Good

[GerryGilmore]

I agree! This nonsense of selling spectrum to the deepest pocketed existing carrier should end. Let the government build out the network and lease - at RAND pricing - capacity to those carriers ready, willing and able to do so in any given area. I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Capitalist Pig(TM) and proud of it, but - you know - pigs get fat and hogs (existing carriers) get slaughtered. As they deserve to be...

Re:Good

[alvinrod]

Sounds more like something that will be another big government project boondoggle, but nonetheless a nice way for Trump and fellow Congress cronies to funnel money to some of their friends and backers to build out this network.

Re: Good

[Anonymous Coward]

And it'll be built entirely from devices manufactured in China. So pointless and porky, right in the Trump wheelhouse.

Re:Good

[bigwheel]

While I normally cringe at the having the government in control of things, this seems like a good idea to me too. Information routes, like roadways, should be something that the government provides to its citizens, rather than having much of the country at the whim of one or two carriers, who happen to own and control the spectrum. Plus, it pulls some of the Net Neutrality concerns off of the table.

It will be interesting to see how they plan to pay for it.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

And of course, as its leased out government owned, there of course would NEVER be any domestic spying without all that pesky warrant and "just cause" right.. I mean that would have nothing to do with that.

That can be adequately remedied with VPN and other secure tunneling methods. If it means that rural areas of the United States will finally receive decent broadband it just might be worth the trade.

Re:Good

[Angelwrath]

Yeah, and as a telecom employee I've thought this is the much better way forward. Spectrum sales create walled gardens. With one national network, each tower has access to full spectrum for maximum bandwidth, fewer towers are needed so the infrastructure spend is dramatically less, and the government can set a price and allow anybody in.

The alternative is good, too: Instead of spectrum sales, each carrier builds out a portion of the network, and has to contribute a minimum contribution like, say, $6 billion USD in infrastructure, and in return they get access to the whole network and customers everywhere. For that price they get access to the network and X number of customers. Then have a tiered pricing structure where, for each additional tower they add to the network, they get access to Y additional customers. If the figures are set carefully, this incentivizes both growing carriers, and large carriers spend more. The result? An even larger network, with more coverage in suburban and rural areas. And potentially new carriers and competition to drive prices lower.

Now... take this idea and apply it to a national fiber-Internet network, too. Private networks create uneven playing fields and require higher prices because each competitor has to over-build (where there's competition allowed of course). Incentivize carriers to be able to expand their customer base by reaching more and more people with their product, instead, and you'll see as close to 100% affordable broadband access as possible.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds more like something that will be another big government project boondoggle, but nonetheless a nice way for Trump and fellow Congress cronies to funnel money to some of their friends and backers to build out this network.

I hate Trump more than most, but this seems on the face a good idea. That is not to say the federal government won't screw it up.

In short, spectrum is finite. You want phones to be as simple as possible to cut costs, so having everyone share the same hopefully fairly large set of spectrum makes sense. They just need to have every company leasing out fractions of cells on an as needed basis. You might need an additional penalty of you leased space for a month and never used it, just to avoid companies tying up spectrum.

Spectrum in remote areas might be cheap, or possibly more expensive, if it is used in place of real broadband.

I'm not sure I buy the security angle though. Phones are likely fast enough to encrypt conversations end to end real time, but maybe our government doesn't want to implement that :)

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

I like the analogy to the freeway system.

Good broadband should be available all over the USA, just like the postal service and the highway system. It will make rural communities relevant again.

Re:Good

[Excelcia]

Holy Lord, that is the point. The whole idea behind nationalizing the network is to protect against US networks using compromised Chinese components which they are concerned would make (are making) the network vulnerable to their eavesdropping. Which is particularly rich, considering that the US government has been forcing US manufacturers to embed weaknesses into their networking and telecom equipment for years. *cough*CISCO*cough*

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

"Let the government build out the network"
The government doesn't build anything. The government is just the largest general contractor on the planet. The carriers who are currently building their own network infrastructure will just become well paid government vendors while still maintain a fair amount of leverage over pricing and availability. And for god's sake I wish people would stop thinking that the government is the answer to every problem. In case they have not noticed the government is broken and incapable of contributing anything positive to their constituents or the country as a wholes. And their dysfunction has nothing to do with who is President. Our elected representatives do nothing but attend campaign fund raisers, running for election, and conducting endless investigations that have nothing to do with improving the country in any sector. And some folks should actually study up on the powers the US President actually has and compare that power to the legislative branch. Congress has no term limits and have some politicians who have held their office for over 20+ years. Congressional members have no limit on the amount of money they can accept while running for election or sitting in office. These are the same people that control the government purse which they can wield in their on going political bitch fights. And these are also the morons who are charged with creating the countries budget and are lucky if any of them could balance their own check book. If all the social warriors endlessly bashing the President focused 10% their angst on the people actually responsible for the government meltdown maybe things would get better. Every one knows Trump is an idiot so all the protesters should count their efforts as a win and start going after those who are really responsible for bending the US public and giving it to them hard.

Re:Good

[NicknameUnavailable]

The cell phone bill that gets $30/mo more expensive every year doesn't help, but this is the proper solution to net neutrality: it's a utility, treat it as such. Nationalize 5G and the ISPs will get scared and straiten out or get nationalized too.

Re:Good

[4wdloop]

They did decent job with highway system, no?

Re:Good

[bistromath007]

I had the same thought, but the downside is heavy: a "secure" network with the surveillance built right into it.

Re:Good

[plopez]

That was built by contractors. They were supposed to police themselves.

Re: Good

[Anonymous Coward]

The American hi-way system is one of the best in the world for sure. Same with US airports.

You haven't been in many other countries, have you?

Re: Good

[Anonymous Coward]

"China is the dominant malicious actor in the Information Domain."

It's ironic that the actual dominant malicious actor in the information domain is claiming this. One would have to be incredibly naive to be worried more about the Chinese government than the US government, especially when physically in the US.

Re: Good

[cfalcon]

Eh, I can't imagine they would build it from Chinese parts if the explicit worry is Chinese interference. There's a trusted foundry project for a reason, and it's not because we can build stuff more efficiently than they can.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

If you really think Donald Trump is an "idiot," then you're TRULY an idiot.

Re: Good

[WindBourne]

ACA was force on the nation as GOP refused to actually work with them. Then the GOP has done everything to destroy. Yet, if we go back to BEFORE ACA, America's deficit increases a great deal.

Re: Good

[WindBourne]

This would also enable NSA to have full access to 5G. Of course, they already do, so this is not as big of a deal.

Re:Good

[AmiMoJo]

The government is competent at most of the things it does, you just don't hear about it because "XYZ doing fine, nothing to see here" isn't a very good headline.

Re:Good

[slew]

I'm not sure I buy the security angle though. Phones are likely fast enough to encrypt conversations end to end real time, but maybe our government doesn't want to implement that :)

As illustrated by the latest Strava revelation, sideband/meta-data information is quite useful and end-to-end encryption often doesn't protect against leaking this information. Things like Tor reduce the leakage of this type of sideband, but as we also know, actual implementations like Tor cannot be perfect (nor the users that use the technology).

Re:Good

[rtb61]

As long as the digital highway is as transparent as the highway system. What it contains, how private it is, how secure, warrants only invasion of privacy and state based leasing, leased state by state not nationally, to allow more competing companies. How the board are appointed, how builds outs ordered, upgrading, maintenance and repairs, call outs, all set regulation available for public discussions.

They are also all crapping on about social media, how about a congressional library social media platform. Anonymous users names tied to real people with warrants required to uncover them, strict laws apply to comments including freedom of speech versus actual crimes ie threats and set rules equally applied, this as a bone fide, legal and validated, strictly hugely illegal to interfere with (no government paid propagandists, severe penalties for trying) public discussion forums. Can even have foreigners as long as the US government can identify them and they are tagged as such (country of origin), still anonymous because outside opinions are always useful, stuck in a bubble is a waste of time.

So part of the digital highway could also be things like, safe universal email address, US political social media, search (with set rules, sorting and open source algorithms), shared library of congress content library (videos, pictures, stories and other stuff - more on that latter not time yet).

Re:Good

[Freischutz]

You're making a big assumption: The government can implement the network competently.

Consider healthcare.gov.

That is a double edged argument. There are plenty of examples from all over the world where private enterprise took over previously government owned and operated road & rail grids, water supply systems, electric grids, communications grids, public real estate assets, etc ... that gave these private parties an effective monopoly. They then let then let these things fall apart through lack of maintenance and investment while effectively taxing the hell out of citizenry. That last part is what has effectively happened in the US mobile and internet service sectors. The telcos have divvied the country up into competition free fiefdoms and are taxing the hell out of the citizenry for totally sub standard service. If I'm going to be taxed by anybody I'd prefer it be the government because I can oust those bozos every four years by voting them out out of office. Ousting corporate oligarchs takes billions of dollars and a hostile takeover.

Re:Good

[meerling]

Don't worry, the spy networks will be baked in from the get go.
Of course, they're going to be there even if the government doesn't run the 5g, so it's not like trusting them is an issue. Just expect them to be spying. At least it'll cut down on the corporations doing it, the government usually doesn't like people trying to compete with it directly.

Though if the government is doing the 5g, US hardware for it will be highly unpopular in other countries. They'll automatically assume it's got spyware in it if the government has a hand in it.

Re:Good

[meerling]

That was mostly private industry.

Re: Good

[magixman]

Well maybe the concern is that if the government doesn't control the network that security concerns would drive carriers to implement end-to-end encryption that would make implementing FISA warrants difficult. The US has a legal right to monitor cell phone traffic with the limits of FISA courts.

Re: Good

[brunes69]

Yeah! This strategy has sure worked out well for the past 100 years where the public has allowed all the utilities a free ride on our poles... What could POSSIBLY go wrong if we duplicate the process for wireless???

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

In public he appears that way to make people like you think he's some kind of bumbling fool. And yet this a fool built a multi-billion dollar enterprise by having to negotiate contracts and construction with some of the most corrupt politicians and labor unions in the world.

He knows exactly what he is doing both publicly and privately. There are many people who say that in meetings when the media isn't present he's laser focused on the topic at hand and grasps nuances that others miss.

The man has been playing the media and people like you since he announced his campaign and you're all so arrogant and egotistical that you can't even see it.

I'm always amazed how every Republican president is supposedly a bumbling fool while every Democrat one is supposedly some form of genius or superior human and yet in my over 50 years my life and society in general has always seemed to be better when a Republican was in charge.

Re: Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Well....In almost every country that has better networks than the US.

It doesnâ(TM)t mean the gov build it... the government just have to own it.

The premise is that you canâ(TM)t have every company digging up the roads and installing duplicate infrastructure.... internet cables are like electric cables and pipes in that way.

So you end up with a monopoly either way.... so itâ(TM)s better that the government owns the asset and lease it out so you can have competition down the chain rather than the shit that the shitty situation in the US now.

Re: Good

[kelemvor4]

Citation or examples please.

As usual you have no clue.

I work for the government. We are incompetent assclowns.

NOAA, NASA are the first that come to mind. Your department may be full of assclowns, but not all are.

Re: Good

[fortfive]

Itâ(TM)s hard to say whether those services are overpriced, as thereâ(TM)s no good comparison available.

Re: Good

[dog77]

Maybe competent, but it is easy to be complacent in a government job because in general there is less pressure and incentive to do better than the private sector because the competition and pressure is not there. I saw this when I worked for local street department. The long time workers on the department were very good at what they did, but when it came to the actual job of repairing the roads the private companies did it much faster with very good quality. I saw this in the military. There was some really smart technical people who understood the networking equipment in my company, but it was the contractors who were essential and who really understood how to make it work.

Re: Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention the USPS, which despite constant bitching from the Right will still deliver to any address in the U.S. for the cost of a stamp, which adjusted for inflation is about as cheap as it's ever been and is still an order of magnitude less than what you'd pay a private carrier for the same service.

Re: Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Based on what each party supports, I'd say the 'wishy-washy' distribution skews to the Republican side thiugh there's plenty of "bad apples" in both baskets.

Re: Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Multiple analyses have shown that had he simply taken the money he inherited the day his already wealthy father died and stuck it in a Dow-indexed fund, he would be a far richer man than he has become by "building his empire."

Casinos are pretty much the only kind of business that is always profitable. Indians with GEDs routinely make money hand over fist running them. Trump with his fancy "Wharton" degree has run several onto the ground. That takes a special kind of stupid.

Re: Good

[aliquis]

Can you mention such a country?

Re:Good

[rickb928]

"something that the government provides to its citizens"

Our federal government was instituted specifically on the premise that it granted nothing, but was intended to recognizedcertain inalienable rights.

Now we're discussing how our federal government should 'give' to citizens that which we, citizens, are beginning to consider to be 'rights'. Like information channels.

No, this is wrong. In fact, what we think of as 'rights' should be inalienable, and the Internet is not such a thing. Turn off the electricity and discover what 'rights' actually are.

Now, fairness and honesty might compel us to ensure that the airwaves licensed to commercial enterprises for the purposes of information delivery be used in the public interest, and that be examined periodically, those enterprises be held to account for their performance, and perhaps sometimes changes made to encourage use for the public good, but to describe these as 'rights' goes a step too far. And if you've just thought that our federal government perhaps should not be in that business, well, you've got a good point. A good discussion to have. We might change things.

Re:Good

[gbjbaanb]

It would also be more efficient - in the UK each operator puts its own masts up, and you regularly see masts with many different operator antenna in the same place.

If a single operator built the network, they could build it a lot cheaper than having everyone build several.

Re:Good

[Carewolf]

Sounds more like something that will be another big government project boondoggle, but nonetheless a nice way for Trump and fellow Congress cronies to funnel money to some of their friends and backers to build out this network.

I hate Trump more than most, but this seems on the face a good idea. That is not to say the federal government won't screw it up.

In short, spectrum is finite. You want phones to be as simple as possible to cut costs, so having everyone share the same hopefully fairly large set of spectrum makes sense. They just need to have every company leasing out fractions of cells on an as needed basis. You might need an additional penalty of you leased space for a month and never used it, just to avoid companies tying up spectrum.

Spectrum in remote areas might be cheap, or possibly more expensive, if it is used in place of real broadband.

I'm not sure I buy the security angle though. Phones are likely fast enough to encrypt conversations end to end real time, but maybe our government doesn't want to implement that :)

In this case, it is just a matter of whether they can enrich all the people they want while still providing a respectable service, and if they can't, they can just say: Look what we told you: Government is always bad..... Sad..

Re: Good

[Anonymous Coward]

I work for the government. We are incompetent assclowns.

...sound like an improvement over private sector to me!

Re: Good

[jbengt]

I've worked for governments and businesses, big and small. Some of the large private businesses can give government a good run for the money on inefficiency and incompetency. In fact, I've never found governments to be particularly incompetent in my line of work (consulting engineer for construction projects), just very slow and inefficient, mainly due to government requirements on being fair.

Re:Good

[doconnor]

"There are many people who say that in meetings when the media isn't present he's laser focused on the topic at hand and grasps nuances that others miss."

I've never heard this from anyone but partisans. Can you provide examples?

Re: Good

[MachineShedFred]

Answering your question: electricity generation. Like it or not, the Tennessee Power Authority and the Bonneville Power Authority in the Pacific Northwest generate a shitload of electricity and wholesale it to the grid operators. Sure, there aren't really rapid advancements in that field like there are with telecommunications so it's not a perfect example (far from it, really) but it's an example of where the government has "kept pace" with the free market.

The irony though: it's not like you would have federal employees out there standing up cell masts - they would contract the whole mess out to Verizon / ATT / Sprint to use existing cell sites, and give those telcos a nice big scapegoat for any customer service complaints about service quality.

This is just a proposed government giveaway to the telcos, again. Big surprise. Instead of them footing the bill for the network rollout, the taxpayer does. And then they continue charging the shit out of us for access to it.

Re:Good

[layabout]

if you take an honest look, most social infrastructure (roads, schools, prisons, law enforcement, food and medical safety, etc) delivers better results than private industry. when government fails, it is usually from fake state actors starving the project of the money it needs to function.

Re:Good

[ipb]

>It will be interesting to see how they plan to pay for it.

Mexico will pay for it

Re: Good

[hispeedzintarwebz]

I'd like to know where you live where you have had positive interactions with the USPS. In my experience, you get what you pay for, and I barely get my 49 cents worth from the USPS. I'd rather pay $3 to UPS.

Re: Good

[chaboud]

I think he labelled you a Republican because you actually praised something but Trump might do.

Pro-tip: Trump is *almost always* wrong. If he was *always* wrong, his kids could use him to short stocks and run the table.

Accordingly, yeah, this actually isn't a completely awful idea in principle. In practice? Given where we are now?

Re:Good

[Fetko]

I thought it was Canada's turn.

Re: Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Korea.
Australia.
Netherlands.
Sweden.

Re:Good

[butchersong]

Trump actually has a history of renegotiating contracts and saving a bit of money. It doesn't take much more than a willingness to be involved to do this but few presidents in the past have wanted to sully themselves with such mundane work. Take the recent work he did on the F-35 https://www.bloomberg.com/news...

Re:Good

[MachineShedFred]

I can't remember - where did the Internet come from again?

Oh yeah, the US Government, though it was named ARPAnet at the time.

Re: Good

[Gr8Apes]

Pro-tip: Trump is *almost always* wrong.

So he's wrong about being wrong?

Re: Good

[apoc.famine]

Really? USPS delivers to my door 6 days a week, and drops off for Amazon on Sunday. UPS swings by at 10am on a Tuesday, and slaps a note on my door that if I want my package, I have to drive to a shady strip mall 3 miles away in another day or two and pick it up from an "unaffiliated" UPS Store.

And when I tell the employees at that store that it's fucking bullshit that I pay to have packages delivered to my door, and they don't even let me sign them to be left when I'm not there, they tell me that they're not affiliated with UPS. At a store branded "The UPS Store". And that I should call a 1800 number, wait on hold for 20 minutes, and then complain. And, of course, this "unaffiliated" store is open like 9 to 6, and Saturday morning.

All while a mile from my house USPS has a 24hr service center where I can bring my packages in, weigh them, affix the postage, and drop them off, and buy stamps and even snag some of the flat-rate boxes.

I'm in the upper Midwest in a small city. The difference between USPS and UPS is very stark around here. UPS sucks balls, and USPS is pretty fantastic, even when there's 2' of snow and a -20 wind chill.

Re: Good

[JesseMcDonald]

Nice rant. If you sign up for a free UPS My Choice account you'll get much more control over how your packages are delivered, including (in most cases) the ability to "sign" for them in advance, online, rather than getting a note about a missed delivery. Other free options include redirecting the package to a neighbour or to a UPS location for pickup. You can also schedule a specific delivery window, though that isn't free. It's an invaluable service for anyone who doesn't generally have the option of waiting around at home to collect packages.

Experiences vary by location, of course. My local UPS Store in Iowa has proven very helpful, and is open until at least 7pm, whereas (excluding self-service kiosks) the USPS facility is only open 8am-5pm on weekdays—standard working hours, in other words—and 10am-12pm on Saturday morning. If a package must be shipped "signature required", I'd much rather collect it from UPS.

Re:Good

[JesseMcDonald]

ARPAnet did indeed originate from within DARPA (and the universities), albeit with plenty of help from private contractors.

However, the Internet isn't ARPAnet. Not even close. At most one might say that ARPAnet inspired the modern Internet, and laid some groundwork. The transition from a small, closed network of interest only to academics and the military to a worldwide telecommunications system relied on by billions every day is almost entirely due to private research and development. The designers of ARPAnet never intended that, and we're still dealing with the consequences (like 32-bit IP addresses, and zero concern for end-to-end security or privacy in most of the original core protocols).

Re: Good

[Applehu Akbar]

UPS swings by at 10am on a Tuesday, and slaps a note on my door that if I want my package, I have to drive to a shady strip mall 3 miles away in another day or two and pick it up from an "unaffiliated" UPS Store.

In my state we have the opposite UPS problem, ring and run. This has spawned a whole cottage industry of "package pirates' who follow the UPS trucks looking for front porches where nobody is home at the moment.

I would like to see USPS contract out access to their cluster package boxes to UPS and other private package deliverers. UPS could then extend the system by offering its own neighborhood lockbox system. Amazon is already using this concept in some laces.

Re: Good

[rahvin112]

The biggest factor slowing down government isn't "being fair". It's red tape placed to document transactions so fraud and theft can be identified and tracked. 90% of red tape is solely their to either eliminate fraud or make it easier to locate and prosecute.

People that talk about cutting red tape are usually talking about making it easier to steal tax payer money and some of them don't even realize it.

Re:Good

[erapert]

If I'm going to be taxed by anybody I'd prefer it be the government because I can oust those bozos every four years by voting them out out of office.

That's where you're wrong.

You might be able to cast a vote every four years but your vote alone doesn't change your situation. If you just change service providers (assuming that it's possible in the first place) then your situation is immediately improved.

Furthermore, the TLAs (i.e. the FCC) do not change every four years because you voted for a new president or a new senator or whatever. So it's actually incorrect that you can oust the "bozos" every four years. There's a reason that the euphemism "revolving door" exists.

To go yet further still: what exactly has changed when one party takes power? The rhetoric does, but not much else as far as I can tell. It seems to me that it's just more crap from a different butt hole and meanwhile the deficits continue and the debt climbs and the roads still suck and the same "corporate oligarchs" that you complain about are still abusing their monopolies (assuming their protection money is all paid up...).

The real solution is two fold:
1. Cut government power: this prevents them from creating or protecting monopolies.
2. Break up the monopolies and end all protections for them thus forcing them to compete.

Re:Good

[rahvin112]

Spying will likely be less under a government run system. A private company can voluntarily (the only thing preventing them from doing so would be public backlash but Congress waived their requirement to tell you they'd shared the data and waived liability for doing so with the patriot act) hand your data over without a warrant, government run organizations can not.

You would actually be far safer with a government run network in that regard.

Re:Good

[wisnoskij]

Why? No one is stopping the government from building any networks that it wants. But why prevent others from doing so? Are we afraid that the commercial sector might do so better and cheaper and put the government out of business? Would having some redundant nodes really be a bad thing?

Re: Good

[wisnoskij]

If NASA is so great why does spacex exist and why does it make NASA look like a bunch of hobbyists?

Re:Good

[wisnoskij]

It's almost like monopolies are bad and produce horribly expensive and shitty service?

Re: Good

[apoc.famine]

Nice. If I do a bunch of shit that I shouldn't have to do and give away my personal information I can get worse service than I can get from someone else. How much does UPS pay you, shill?

Re: Good

[JesseMcDonald]

How much does UPS pay you, shill?

Nothing. I'm just a satisfied customer trying to be helpful. I guess there really is no pleasing some people.

Re: Good

[aliquis]

Sweden.

Since I live there and we don't have it I wondered which countries do have it.

Televerket (Originally Kongl. Elecktriska Telegraf-Werket) was created 1853 and owned and administrated the telephone, the TV and the cellular phone network of Sweden until 1993. 1920s-1980s in practicality alone though not in law (as in you could create a competing network I guess but would you try than the state already have one in place just about everywhere?)
Sometime before 1977 they started to roll out digital cellular network and 1987 we had nation-wide coverage (first in the world)

Frequency administration was moved out in 1992 to Post- och telestyrelsen (authority) and radio and TV was moved out to Terracom (stock company) the same year. 1993 the rest was moved to the (nationally owned stock) company of Telia.

Year 2000 30% of Telia was sold and a lot of regular Swedish citizens bought stock.
2002-2003 Telia join the Finnish telephony operator Sonera and becomes Telia-Sonera.

2007 Skanova becomes Telia-Skanova and they do sell network capacity to others.

Anyway as far as I know the copper network in Sweden is owned by Telia-Sonera but parts of Telia has been sold out so it's both national/public and private and as for how ownership of Sonera is I don't know.

The operator Net1 own their own cellular network and Telia, Telenor, Tele2 and Tre all build and run their own networks but sometimes in co-operation with each other. So we have five different cellular network creators of which just one in part is national, definitely not a monopoly of either of the network itself or the services on it. We actually have 25 companies which offer services on those 5 networks but who don't own a network of themselves.
https://www.induo.com/s/g/vilk...

On the copper network you can get the actual service from others than Telia-Sonera too but I assume they charge quite a bit for the network itself.

As for Internet connectivity there is xDSL on that copper network, there at-least was isdn, there's connectivity over the cable-tv network where the largest one with 75% Comhem previously was the one under Televerket so as such also created by the public/nation/government but also at-least three others, and then there's private and municipal and I guess also the government/public/Skanova copper or fiber Ethernet networks either for just one service provider or for multiple ones.

As for where I live if I had copper telephony I assume that network would be owned by Telia-Sonera. But I don't have any.
For my cellular connectivity I use Hallon and Universal-Telecom which use the the cellular networks of Tre and Telenor.
I don't have cable-TV service but the network my apartment is connected to is Comhem.
My copper Ethernet is connected to Bredbandsbolaget whom only offer their own services but the building is also connected to StadsnÃt which is a municipal network I could and likely should had switched to which offer plenty of services providers.

So one can definitely argue much of that infrastructure was created and ran by the state (I used the word nation before but I won't go up and change it) but they don't own any such company fully any longer and they haven't had a legal monopoly and don't have a de-facto monopoly of it and as is me personally I can choose from 30 cellular providers on 5 different networks of which one was created by the state, a whole bunch of xDSL services over the one copper telephony network originally created by the state, one cable TV TV and Internet services provider from one cable-TV network provider which originally also was created by the state and finally Internet over Ethernet from I guess around 10 different service providers through two different ~fiber networks of which one is private (I assume) and one is a municipal co-operation between this municipality and the one south of this one.

My mother is having her house conne

Re:Good

[Freischutz]

If I'm going to be taxed by anybody I'd prefer it be the government because I can oust those bozos every four years by voting them out out of office.

That's where you're wrong. You might be able to cast a vote every four years but your vote alone doesn't change your situation. If you just change service providers (assuming that it's possible in the first place) then your situation is immediately improved. Furthermore, the TLAs (i.e. the FCC) do not change every four years because you voted for a new president or a new senator or whatever. So it's actually incorrect that you can oust the "bozos" every four years. There's a reason that the euphemism "revolving door" exists. To go yet further still: what exactly has changed when one party takes power? The rhetoric does, but not much else as far as I can tell. It seems to me that it's just more crap from a different butt hole and meanwhile the deficits continue and the debt climbs and the roads still suck and the same "corporate oligarchs" that you complain about are still abusing their monopolies (assuming their protection money is all paid up...). The real solution is two fold: 1. Cut government power: this prevents them from creating or protecting monopolies. 2. Break up the monopolies and end all protections for them thus forcing them to compete.

One small point ... monopolies can exist in the complete absence of any government at all so your supposition that government power is the key factor in creating monopolies is wrong. In fact, historically, government power has been one of the few things that broke up monopolies so you are going to need government power to end monopolies (because contrary to popular myth, the fairy godmother of the free market won't do it for you within an acceptable time frame) so if you cut government power you are strengthening the monopolist's power.

Re:Good

[erapert]

One small point ... monopolies can exist in the complete absence of any government at all

That's true. I agree.

so your supposition that government power is the key factor in creating monopolies is wrong.

In the case of telecoms that are using regulations to build and protect their monopolies I think it is true.

In fact, historically, government power has been one of the few things that broke up monopolies

This is true.

so you are going to need government power to end monopolies (because contrary to popular myth, the fairy godmother of the free market won't do it for you within an acceptable time frame) so if you cut government power you are strengthening the monopolist's power.

It's possible to give certain powers to the government and deny others.

For example, the power to wage wars but not the power to summarily execute citizens without due process of law.

Likewise, it should also be possible to limit the government's ability to stifle competition or support cronies while also giving the government the ability to judiciously decide what is or isn't a harmful monopoly and break it up.

Re: Good

[NeoTubNinja]

Because Elon needed something to do and was bored. Are we REALLY at the point where people are shitting on NASA because we hate the government so much we can't differentiate one part from another?

Re:Good

[Ol Olsoc]

>It will be interesting to see how they plan to pay for it.

Mexico will pay for it

No silly, when we arrest the FBI secret society members and disband the deep state, and confiscate the Pizzagate profits, Our soulmates in Russia will pay for it.

Aided of course by framed copies of O'Blama's actual Kenyan birth certificate.

Checkmate atheists!

Re: Good

[NeoTubNinja]

Nice plug and antecdote. We all have them and yours is no different. I've moved about every three years since I was five due to being a military brat. Hands down, every location I've been, whether it's Texas, Georgia, Germany, etc. has always had a better USPS than UPS. I'm glad you've got everything figured out in bumfuck Iowa, but you should probably get more data points for your stellar insights into the package industry.

Re:Good

[lsatenstein]

I second your comment!

LMAO

[Anonymous Coward]

That doesn't sound very conservative. It's cool though because he's on our team.

Re:LMAO

[aussie_a]

Lots of people in government make all sorts of recommendations, most of them aren't acted on. Just because one department made a presentation on something doesn't mean "team Trump" are going to do it.

Re:LMAO

[PopeRatzo]

Just because one department made a presentation on something doesn't mean "team Trump" are going to do it.

It all depends on the last person who speaks to Trump.

Re:LMAO

[king neckbeard]

I'm pretty sure he didn't actually say that. Trump isn't a PT Barnum, he's an 8-year old.

Re:LMAO

[Anonymous Coward]

Lots of people in government make all sorts of recommendations, most of them aren't acted on.

And one of the biggest reasons that happens is because news of those plans are reported on and the public pushes back.

Which is exactly what is happening here.

Re:LMAO

[greenwow]

Just because he is for the vast majority a Democrat like all thinking people, doesn't mean he is completely one of us.

Re:LMAO

[PopeRatzo]

PopeCrapso

You're triggered, aren't you? Because you sound triggered.

I get a bonus in my monthly Soros check when I can trigger an AC on Slashdot. Would you mind filling out a brief survey about your satisfaction with this interaction? You'll be entered in a drawing to win a MAGA hat or a pair of Stormy Daniels panties worn after an interracial cuck scene.

Smart

[110010001000]

Big Federal government is better at providing infrastructure services than private industry. That is why Federal spending has increased every year the GOP has been in control of the Federal government.

Re:Smart

[ChunderDownunder]

The way Americans here rant about the cartels delivering shoddy overpriced mobile phone and cable services, one might have thought that government intervention to drain the swamp would be a good thing. (Not a commentary on Republicans and Trump, if that's what you're angling for)

Just don't follow the Australian NBN scenario where one side introduced a policy and the next government completely FUBARed it for political gain and because Uncle Rupert. And they then promoted the turd bowl to Prime Minister...

No Russia?

[ArchieBunker]

A Trump story without a mention of Russia hacking something? Come on Slashdot!

Re:No Russia?

[QuantumLeaper]

I know the Truth hurts, don't it?

Re:No Russia?

[greenwow]

Thought he was too busy hunting stone sheep.

But seriously, he looked good in the gear.

Re:No Russia?

[thegarbz]

A Trump story without a mention of Russia hacking something? Come on Slashdot!

There was a mention of Russia hacking Trump, but the Russians hacked Slashdot to get rid of it.

Neo-colonial behavior?

[Bobrick]

Reading a US government official denouncing another country's neo-colonial behavior just made my freaking day. +1 Funny whoever it was... Ivanka? Jared?

Re:Neo-colonial behavior?

[shankar2015m]

China is occupying Tibet, invading all of its neighbors, building artificial islands, trapping countries like Sri Lanka in debt traps and taking control of parts of these countries.... Looks plenty colonial !!

Re:Neo-colonial behavior?

[Bobrick]

Of course it is. The point is the US is in no place to give lessons in this regard.

Re:Neo-colonial behavior?

[Anonymous Coward]

Reading a US government official denouncing another country's neo-colonial behavior just made my freaking day.

As with most things in life, its not binary. Sure, the US has practically defined neo-colonialism. But for all the shitty things the US has done, its also been the single strongest proponent of liberalism. China has absolutely no interest in promoting liberal democracy. ZERO. When the US unilaterally retreats from the world stage, that leaves a giant power vacuum and everybody else that is ready to fill that vacuum are significantly worse than the US.

The US absolutely needs to do better. But that doesn't justify handing off the world to others actively looking to do worse.

Re:Neo-colonial behavior?

[shankar2015m]

I agree regime change and taking away support are for meddling in other countries affairs, but taking someone's land or sea rights away is a whole different ball game.

Re:Neo-colonial behavior?

[Darkling-MHCN]

*Cough* NATO and half the other countries not in NATO...

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-...

Re:Neo-colonial behavior?

[shankar2015m]

Breaking someone's assets one time is bad, but taking them away permanently is worse. Really!

Re:Neo-colonial behavior?

[shankar2015m]

For the record, TIbest does not exist in sea. And, with Myanmar's sea rights gone, they lose their best ways of exports. Breaking ports for once is bad, but taking them out permanently is certainly worse!!

Re:Neo-colonial behavior?

[Another Mouse Coward]

I was late to the party, so thank you for posting that for me. :D (i.e. my thoughts exactly.)

Re: Neo-colonial behavior?

[Zontar The Mindless]

Surely they would have been better off left to the Japanese Empire.

Re:Neo-colonial behavior?

[Darkling-MHCN]

And how do they spend this 2% of their GDP? The answer would be a fair chunk of that would be on US made weapon systems.

Most of what the US does that could be classified as "neo-colonial" is forcing or creating situations that ultimately result in the sale of US weapon systems. e.g. the sale of anti-ballistic missile systems to Korea and Japan that you could argue is a result of the bad relations between Trump and "little rocket man"

Re:Neo-colonial behavior?

[HiThere]

Sorry, the US doesn't have to justify leaving a power vacuum. It didn't intend to do so, it's just that that's the way things happen. Being the "top dog" is expensive in many ways, and no country can afford to do that forever, even with stolen wealth. Egypt couldn't, Greece couldn't, Rome couldn't, Britain couldn't, and the US can't. Except for Greece (Alexander) the time periods seem to be getting shorter and the area dominated larger, but it hasn't happened often enough to make a pattern that can be trusted. Estimates, however, have been made that the US has spend several times the worth of all the oil remaining in the ground in the Middle East fighting there.

The problems is that times of transition of power have often been violent. This needs to be avoided this time if humanity is to survive.

P.S.: There are several "world powers" I just left out, though with the inclusion of Greece the justice of doing so is questionable. In particular the Assyrians, the Hittites, the Mongols, etc. The Mongols in particular should really have been included, as their "empire" still has an affect on the modern world. Tamerlain shaped the tone of the Moslem religion into a strongly militaristic and Xenophobic form, which it didn't have in the earlier period. The Koran can be read in as many different ways as the rest of the Bible. But with the destruction of the civilized cities along the silk road, the Moslems retreated into a shell of fundamentalism, and many of them have not yet re-emerged. (Now justify why the Christians are doing the same thing without being wiped out by an invading army.)
OTOH, leaving out China from the list was not only intentional, but strongly justifiable. China has almost always been heavily introverted. Their traditional stance has been "Nobody outside China matters". The British may have broken this stance, but it wouldn't surprise me to see it re-assert itself. This doesn't mean they don't seek to dominate those they trade with. North Vietnam would have willingly allied itself with the US to avoid Chinese domination, but the US was unwilling to deal honorably with them. This has happened several times where potential allies were turned into enemies because the US refused to deal honorably with them. For explicit examples you could ask the American Indian tribes how honestly the US has maintained it's treaties. Often, however, the US hasn't even been honorable long enough for a treaty to be signed. In Vietnam the Geneva Protocols were first accepted by the US, and then, when the US saw who would win the election, violated. Etc.

Re:Neo-colonial behavior?

[Darkling-MHCN]

I think my argument is based on fact.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

The US is the biggest exporter of arms on the planet, by some sources the US exports more arms than the rest of the world combined. Your argument is based on hysteria and rhetoric. The industrial military complex is real and has been dominating the US financially and politically for more than half a century. I think it's time to pull your head of the sand/propaganda bubble.

Re:Neo-colonial behavior?

[Darkling-MHCN]

It does when you're creating an environment or taking actions which necessitate the purchase of those arms. The war on drugs. The war on terror. It's all really a war on any decline in arms revenue. The US isn't interested in peace and stability, quite the contrary, war and instability is very good for business.

Re:Neo-colonial behavior?

[Darkling-MHCN]

Who needs direct governance in a world dominated by global corporates?

There are old ways of doing things and new ways. But essentially they end up being the same thing. e.g. Old fashion slavery is rare in this day and age, i.e. people being made to work shackled with a slave master standing over them 24/7. However there is more slavery today than there ever has been, the common form of slavery in this day and age is debt slavery, where workers are tricked into employment situations which requires them to work for several years to pay off a debt manufactured by the employer.

Re:Chinese neo-colonial behavior?

[R3d M3rcury]

They're behaving the way we do. It's not fair!

Also in the news...

[Anonymous Coward]

...there's pushback because very stupid people are now able to make powerful presentations using PowerPoint, leading to very stupid decisions.

Mobile networks are not a natural monopoly, the way wired networks are. It's the wired ones that should be nationalized. 5G is not a serious security issue. I'd probably regulate teleco equipment a bit better, with stronger security requirements and legal enforcement of some of the best practices on critical systems.

Re:Also in the news...

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Mobile networks are not a natural monopoly, the way wired networks are.

I find your views on limitless spectrum intreging and would like to know more. At the very least, you can always (at huge expense) run more non-interfering fiber. You cannot just broadcast more data.

Re:Also in the news...

[Darkling-MHCN]

What's your reasoning for thinking 5G is not a serious security issue? In a time of war would you like to have an off switch or the ability to listen in on any phone call over a national 5G network of the country you're in conflict with?

Re:Also in the news...

[WaffleMonster]

What's your reasoning for thinking 5G is not a serious security issue?

Securing networks is a fools errand.

Re:Also in the news...

[jeff4747]

Mobile networks are not a natural monopoly, the way wired networks are.

Uh....each mobile network has an exclusive agreement for part of the wireless spectrum. So yes, they are a natural monopoly. If you don't outbid AT&T, AT&T is the only one who can use that part of the spectrum.

The result is Verizon and AT&T own almost all of the spectrum, and the other carriers pay them for service.

Re:Also in the news...

[Verdatum]

End-to-end encryption only protects confidentiality, not accessibility.

Re:Also in the news...

[squiggleslash]

Given we're almost always at war these days, perhaps you're making a good argument for not giving the government off switches or the ability to listen in to phone calls.

Re:Also in the news...

[Deliveranc3]

With multicasting we got about 4000 times more bandwidth than we had in 2000. We use less due to better compression.

We're not going to have a problem with overlapping data for a long time.

City density in Asia is many times that of Europe and North America and they don't have any problems.

There's really no reason to use anything but GSM anymore, it has more than enough bandwidth for everyone.

Re:Grab the popcorn

[Bobrick]

Please define "millenials" while I'm grabbing MY popcorn.

Baked in paranoia

[SeaFox]

A source suggests the first option is preferred and essential to protect against competition from China and "bad actors".

How are they going to build the network without using hardware that is made in China?

Re:Baked in paranoia

[AHuxley]

Get the design from a trusted US, Germany, Japan, France, UK brand. All thats needed is the experts to show their design is 5G ready and secure to US standards.
Something that will work in the varied conditions all over the USA.
Get a new factory designed to turn key standards. Shop around the world for any more trusted nation that will to go cheaper than China for the bid to build 5G for the USA.
The difficult design work is done. Its just finding a nation with really cheap workers, a good power supply, no taxes and thats ready for the robot parts.
Find the winning nation, build the production line. Put any logo, branding on the parts as needed for the US. With low local wages, gov support, no unions, no protests the low cost hardware will export back to the USA.
No China and its Communist party factory tech sharing "conditions" needed. The low wage incentives a China once offered are not that great anymore.
Just find a low cost, trusted nation willing to accept US security conditions and that has a lot of workers who can be educated on how to keep the robots working.

Re:Baked in paranoia

[93 Escort Wagon]

Get the design from a trusted US, Germany, Japan, France, UK brand. All thats needed is the experts to show their design is 5G ready and secure to US standards.

Under most administrations, Republican or Democrat, I wouldn't blink at this. But with this guy... all it's going to take is one wild rumor from Fox News and suddenly Trump's going to demand everything be completely changed.

Re:Baked in paranoia

[AHuxley]

Its a bit like the Apollo program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Set the spec, use anyone trusted in the private sector to produce what is needed.
The private sector gets the winning bid, the US gets all the secure 5G it wants at a low cost.
The private sector keeps on innovating. The US mil has less to worry about another nations telco brand "workers" spying on their camp/fort/base/port.

Re:Baked in paranoia

[John.Banister]

By drawing a distinction where Taiwan is concerned.

Re:Baked in paranoia

[Zontar The Mindless]

You didn't come close to addressing 93's concerns.

Re:Baked in paranoia

[AHuxley]

What concerns?
Telco hardware is a product that can be designed and produced like most of other tech products and has been for most telco networks going back many years.
Pick a secure winning design, find a low wage nation to build the hardware in.
The only telco change is need for a secure network.

good thinking - no chinese components

[iggymanz]

this will protect us, because mobile devices aren't made in china

neither are the components of wireless networking gear

(pffffft!!!!)

Re:good thinking - no chinese components

[gweihir]

And it _never_ happens that firmware for good, solid US brands is written in China either! Not possible, no.

On the plus side, for that software and hardware _not_ made in China, the Chinese will include all their domestic spying capabilities, so the US does not have to find out how to do that themselves.

Re:good thinking - no chinese components

[iggymanz]

Or buy honest to goodness U.S. firmware based routers, then plug into your Cisco Catalyst switch made in China

Re:good thinking - no chinese components

[gweihir]

I think the only source of US firmware is the NSA....

Hugo Chavez would be proud!

[stabiesoft]

Nationalizing private assets. Baby steps to become a dictator Donnie.

Re:But where..

[AHuxley]

Once the standard is set? Why pay a tech wage in China?
Build a new turn key factory in a Laos, Indonesia, Vietnam. Get their governments to give their full support for the new tech "jobs"
Make them bid lower than China can for the same factory.
Set up the production line, print on any trusted US, German, Italian, French telco brand on the side of the new hardware that the US will accept as trusted.
Any one can build the communications equipment.

China...

[Bobrick]

I assume this will come in effect the same day the Trump family's businesses start producing their crap in the US instead of China?

Backdoored for your convenience

[rainwalker]

So what would the plan be then, "law enforcement" backdoor, and require it by force of law? Seems pretty straightforward.

Re:Backdoored for your convenience

[TheGratefulNet]

"The men dont know,
but the little-hands
understands"

--mr. mojo risin

Re:China, dominant..?

[PopeRatzo]

I guess they forgot the Finnish Nokia, which *actually* dominates the mobile network business.

That's why Trump's got the Department of Defense working on a bomb that kills everyone but leaves hot blondes with big fake tits alone.

It's kind of like a neutron bomb, but for breast implants.

A national 5G Network...

[lionchild]

So, would that mean that if the US Government build/controlled the network, then leased it out, they wouldn't need to notify the companies when they were mirroring and monitoring traffic, right?

Re:A national 5G Network...

[Nkwe]

So, would that mean that if the US Government build/controlled the network, then leased it out, they wouldn't need to notify the companies when they were mirroring and monitoring traffic, right?

Correct. The US government would also have pretty darn good tracking information on every cell phone and other device on the network. Sure as citizens we could end to end encrypt the data, but I bet each IEMI (or whatever 5g uses) will be legally required to be "owned" or attached to someone. Is the trade off worth it? Maybe, maybe not - but we should forget the ease of tracking this would allow. Pretty much every person carries a cell phone. With 5g most every tablet or other mobile device will be online, every motor vehicle will be online. The tracking opportunities of a such a large and centralized network are fantastic and terrifying.

Re: Nationalize?

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot the Godless Evangelicals who worship him and his false idols.

Thoughts

[DaMattster]

I think I am actually fine with it. Given the abuses of Verizon and AT&T, I am fine with a nationalized 5G network. CAVEAT: As long as there are no laws forcing encryption to have backdoors.

Translation

[Leuf]

Eventually we could export the hardware with all of our own backdoors in it to our allies instead of them using the stuff with the Chinese backdoors.

Not that kind of protect...

[Excelcia]

The kind of protection spoken of is not to protect against Chinese superiority, it's to protect US networks against using compromised Chinese components which they are concerned would make the network vulnerable to their eavesdropping. Which is particularly rich, considering that the US government has been forcing US manufacturers to embed weaknesses into their networking and telecom equipment for years. *cough*CISCO*cough*

Trump will consider...

[EzInKy]

...anything that benefits Trump.

My God, what's next?

[mark_reh]

Medicare for all?

Re: Chinese neo-colonial behavior?

[Anonymous Coward]

You (with the complicity of CNN) missed what China is doing in much of Africa and central Asia. Yes, they are blatantly a neocolonial power subtly taking over power in many dictatorships.

Re:China, dominant..?

[Sandman1971]

Or a... nude bomb?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt00...

public funding, private profits

[jsepeta]

public funding: Government builds infrastructure
private profits: Verizon & AT&T leases infrastructure to citizens

Re:public funding, private profits

[postmortem]

Don't be so naive, they'll lease it back to gov't too...

Extraordinarily bad idea

[WaffleMonster]

Placing government in control of a 5G network everyone uses grants government means of directly tracking high resolution movements of everyone everywhere in real time. Hard to come up with a worse more dangerous idea than this one.

This would in theory make carriers compete for customers everywhere, and increase signal availability and quality for everyone.

What would be better is framework for allowing competing carriers to dynamically share spectrum completely doing away with exclusive grants.

Allowing multiple carriers to use the same frequencies is technically feasible with next gen technology and opens up means to competition rather than allowing only those with the deepest pockets to win spectrum auctions.

Re:Extraordinarily bad idea

[jeff4747]

Placing government in control of a 5G network everyone uses grants government means of directly tracking high resolution movements of everyone everywhere in real time. Hard to come up with a worse more dangerous idea than this one

That horse left the barn in the Bush administration. Carriers are required to provide that information to the federal government. It's one of the things in the FISA bills that keep quietly passing Congress.

Re:Extraordinarily bad idea

[WaffleMonster]

Carriers are required to provide that information to the federal government. It's one of the things in the FISA bills that keep quietly passing Congress.

Are you seriously asserting carriers are continuously sending the wareabouts of every cell user to the federal government? If so feel free to backup your claim with publically available evidence. Wholesale collection of CDRs from everyone was ended years ago.

That horse left the barn in the Bush administration.

So what if it has? Is this a license to ignore the issue and allow it to be made worse?

Re:Extraordinarily bad idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait I don't get it.... you already have a RF transmitter in your pocket with fairly unique ID signatures that can be traced with near infinite precision depending on how good of a receiver you have. The government can already track you. I'm not sure I see your points as valid. It just means you'd NEED to VPN everywhere, because instead of a private company spying on you, it will be the government itself spying on you.

Also, they will be in a huge position of power to create something like a great firewall of China. Especially if parents say: "Someone think of the children!" and spread FUD about pornography.

Re:Extraordinarily bad idea

[magusxxx]

I totally agree with you. And there's another little tidbit no one is considering...

President Trump: If you want to use our network you'll have to put backdoors into your software. That way when we let our 'allies' use the technology we can make sure it's in our best interest...And if a few Americans are watched at the same time, that's okay. National Security. That's all the explanation we have to give.

And a big off-topic side note...

When former President Bush Jr. gave his big TV speech he told Saddam Hussein to leave the oil fields alone. "They belong to the people of Iraq." A reporter actually asked, "Then why aren't the U.S. oil fields nationalized?"

His reply, "That would make us Communists."

Hey! I just made this thread a connection between Trump and Russia. Hmmmm..... ;)

Re:Extraordinarily bad idea

[Freischutz]

Placing government in control of a 5G network everyone uses grants government means of directly tracking high resolution movements of everyone everywhere in real time. Hard to come up with a worse more dangerous idea than this one.

Why? All that is necessary now to achieve total surveillance is bully all the big providers into feeding the NSA data or just to allow the NSA unrestricted access to each providers backbone and the NSA has done that already. The horrible eventuality you foresee is already the norm thanks to the Republicans and Corporate Democrats (a few lone dissidents on both sides excepted). One big advantage of a national 5G grid would be that new service providers will be able to get equal access to the national grid and to challenge the big boys and eliminate the mobile service fiefdoms the US is currently divided up into and if there is no equal access it would be easier to bully the Fed into allowing it on a national grid by going through the courts than fighting a bunch of Telcos operating as a cartel. In Europe communities with municipal network backbones often have the liveliest competition and the lowest prices due to equal access for everybody both big national and small local players. Of course competition should have been enforced long a go through cartel, price fixing and competition laws since the US Telcos have not made much effort to hide their anti-competitive behaviour. Still, I wouldn't worry, the big Telcos are hard at work lobbying to kill this idea of a national 5G grid to protect their competition free fiefdoms so the current totally rotten system is safe.

Re:Extraordinarily bad idea

[Freischutz]

Carriers are required to provide that information to the federal government. It's one of the things in the FISA bills that keep quietly passing Congress.

Are you seriously asserting carriers are continuously sending the wareabouts of every cell user to the federal government? If so feel free to backup your claim with publically available evidence. Wholesale collection of CDRs from everyone was ended years ago.

Yup, and what makes people think that the government agency running this national 5G network would just alluvasudden ignore whatever laws there are in place that currently prevent the security services from bullying private mobile service providers into tracking every user's location in real time and warehouse the data? If the US security apparatus wanted to implement an Orwellian system to monitor the movements of every US citizen via their cellphone it will not make a damn bit of difference whether the 5G network is publicly or privately owned.

Re:Extraordinarily bad idea

[An dochasac]

Placing government in control of a 5G network everyone uses grants government means of directly tracking high resolution movements of everyone everywhere in real time. Hard to come up with a worse more dangerous idea than this one.

This would in theory make carriers compete for customers everywhere, and increase signal availability and quality for everyone.

What would be better is framework for allowing competing carriers to dynamically share spectrum completely doing away with exclusive grants.

Allowing multiple carriers to use the same frequencies is technically feasible with next gen technology and opens up means to competition rather than allowing only those with the deepest pockets to win spectrum auctions.

This feasible technology is known as cognitive radio with spectrum pricing games. But given congressional-oligopoly financial feedback mechanisms, I expect the next gen will be wideband AM with 99% of the DC to Light spectrum allocated to Rush Limbaugh with the remaining 1% divided between for-profit emergency services, automated stock trading and World Harvest Radio's endtimes prophesy hour.

Re:Extraordinarily bad idea

[mjwx]

Placing government in control of a 5G network everyone uses grants government means of directly tracking high resolution movements of everyone everywhere in real time. Hard to come up with a worse more dangerous idea than this one

That horse left the barn in the Bush administration. Carriers are required to provide that information to the federal government. It's one of the things in the FISA bills that keep quietly passing Congress.

This.

Not sure why people think the private sector cares about their privacy and security at all... let alone more than the government. Private corporations have been selling your data to anyone and everyone who'll pay for years, the government at least has rules preventing that.

Re:Extraordinarily bad idea

[mysidia]

Placing government in control of a 5G network everyone uses grants government means of directly tracking high resolution movements of everyone everywhere in real time.

They already have it..... the only question is: What kind of monopoly do you like better... A corporate one, or a government one?

Both types have their merits and drawbacks.

In theory a government monopoly SHOULD represent the people. I don't know that I trust government that much. I would RATHER private ownership with regulation, but I sure as heck don't trust the existing telecom monopolies not to gouge consumers, and they've already captured the regulation process.

I guess i'd like to see an effective government-run broadband network that doesn't gouge on bandwidth pricing as an OPTION in everyplace, and let the telecoms compete against that ---- if they want to keep their monopolies justify it, by building wired/fiber networking infrastructure.

Re:Extraordinarily bad idea

[jeff4747]

Are you seriously asserting carriers are continuously sending the wareabouts of every cell user to the federal government?

No, carriers are required to store that information for 5 years, and supply the data for specific users on request.

Wholesale collection of CDRs from everyone was ended years ago.

By making the carriers store it instead of the government. Not exactly much of a change.

So what if it has? Is this a license to ignore the issue and allow it to be made worse?

Depending on your personal mindset, there's two results:
1) The Orwellian nightmare has not appeared despite about 20 years of this data collection, so what me worry?
2) If you're suddenly worried about this, where you been the last 20 years when we could have used your help? You're suddenly concerned when the privacy invasion affects the profits of telecommunications giants?

Re:Extraordinarily bad idea

[apoc.famine]

If the US security apparatus wanted to implement an Orwellian system to monitor the movements of every US citizen via their cellphone it will not make a damn bit of difference whether the 5G network is publicly or privately owned.

I think Prism and the upcoming nation-wide license plate scanning project demonstrate that quite well. If they're not doing it via the cell network already, they don't have a need for it, or they don't have the capacity for it. Ability? Definitely have that.

Re:Extraordinarily bad idea

[dAzED1]

It's really sad that there were so many comments before yours what that didn't point this basic, obvious thing out and instead talked about how great an idea it would be.

Re:Extraordinarily bad idea

[dAzED1]

or 3) making something even easier might cross a threshold for some people

They may have been storing info about what cell tower you're linked to, but they do not try to pinpoint your location. That takes active effort. If the gov owned all the towers, and the standard itself, then they could do a few things - they could embed the GPS info into the cell signal back to the tower, they could try and get you to bounce a few signals from other towers to try and triangulate your position sans GPS, etc. There is a dramatic difference between having all the info immediately w/o warrant, and needing a warrant to get info that isn't /that/ helpful. Knowing my tower lets you know a circle with a radius of 20 miles or so. That's not great info to constantly know, but it's certainly not knowing exactly what locations I'm at at exact times all through the day.

Re:Extraordinarily bad idea

[jeff4747]

or 3) making something even easier might cross a threshold for some people

It's already trivially easy. Actually running the network does not make it easier.

If anything, it's slightly harder because the federal government has weak privacy regulations. AT&T, Verizon and the others have no privacy regulations.

There is a dramatic difference between having all the info immediately w/o warrant, and needing a warrant

No warrant is required to get the data from the phone companies. That's one of the things the FISA law includes.

Knowing my tower lets you know a circle with a radius of 20 miles or so.

First, it's not just which tower. There's a signal strength too. So they have an idea how close you are to the tower.
Second, it's not one tower. There's 3-5 towers that can see your phone in a typical coverage area. Each one with a signal strength.

A bit of math and that circle is actually quite small.

Lastly, virtually all phones rely on the tower to do the math and location lookup for GPS. Which means if any app on your phone turns on the GPS, the tower knows exactly where you are.

Again, the situation you fear came to be a long time ago.

Re:Extraordinarily bad idea

[dAzED1]

I feel like you're saying words, without realizing they're supposed to have meaning. If I am running a network, and I want to find out info about that network, it's easier for me than if I am simply asking Amazon (or some other external group) how the network is working. Also, you may not realize this, but FISA is a court action, and it's also for *FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE* (thus the F). Domestic intelligence is a dramatically different ball of wax and yes, does require a warrant. But even the current telco companies only know a 20mile radius circle - they don't have 5 years of info that at 8:15a you go to starbucks for 15-20 minutes, then you stop by the newspaper stand for 3-5 minutes during your walk to work down a particular road, every mon-fri. Real life isn't the movies. And don't presume to know about what I am afraid.

Re:Extraordinarily bad idea

[dAzED1]

Also, I wanted to address this: "First, it's not just which tower. There's a signal strength too" - I think it's cute that you think they're tracking my phone's signal strength, and that THAT is what allows them to guess distance. First, the cell tower isn't changing power or otherwise even caring what my signal strength is; that's just my phone. Second, the signal strength for the vast majority of people has little to do with distance, and more to do with obstructions; in SoCal, it's mountains in the suburbs and then the mesh that covers every house here (there's a wire mesh holding the stucco which covers every house top to bottom here). Then there's various materials used in commercial buildings, etc; signal "strength" comes and goes based not just on distance, but environment. Round trip time is better; a cell tower can send a signal for which it expects a response, and given the round trip time it can judge distance...but even that is suspect, because your signal might be bouncing off a building down the street and coming back to you, who knows (the path of a cell signal is extremely indirect in places with lots of skyscrapers). But even still, this method is WAY better than somehow knowing your signal strength and using that to determine...anything. And neither method can pinpoint you well. For that, you do in fact need more than 1 signal.

Re:Extraordinarily bad idea

[Obfuscant]

They may have been storing info about what cell tower you're linked to, but they do not try to pinpoint your location. That takes active effort.

"Effort by computer" is not really a significant limiting factor. Another word for it is "automated", and another would be "conserve resources."

Each modern cell tower does locate the user so that it can use phased array antennas to direct as little power as necessary towards him and improve reception from him. It takes no human effort, the system does it all by itself.

If the gov owned all the towers, and the standard itself, then they could do a few things - they could embed the GPS info into the cell signal back to the tower,

Owning the towers does not imply that they can force phones to send GPS data, but then, they don't need to do that to get locations with a reasonable precision.

they could try and get you to bounce a few signals from other towers to try and triangulate your position sans GPS

You do realize that your phone regularly checks for a better tower connection automatically, don't you? In other words, it tries to bounce a signal from other towers. Have you heard the term "handoff"? How do you imagine that the phone and tower system know that a handoff is beneficial and to what other tower? And even if your phone isn't sending to those towers, they can certainly listen to your signal if they want to triangulate.

Knowing my tower lets you know a circle with a radius of 20 miles or so.

You need to read up on the technology.

I work in search and rescue. There are cases where with one ping of a cell tower the location of a lost or hiding person has been located to within a few hundred yards. This is in rural areas where only one cell tower could hear the phone. If there are more towers and your phone has better service, you can bet you can be located to within a twenty yard radius. Not twenty miles.

Re:Extraordinarily bad idea

[Obfuscant]

There's a signal strength too.

And direction. Each cell has two or three antennas so it is trivial to use phased array methods to get a direction. In fact, that allows both ends to use less power, conserving the phone's battery and decreasing co-site interference.

Re:Extraordinarily bad idea

[jeff4747]

If I am running a network, and I want to find out info about that network, it's easier for me than if I am simply asking Amazon (or some other external group) how the network is working.

If the group running the network has a privacy policy, then you have to comply with that policy. That adds effort and documentation.
If the Amazon has no privacy policy, then you just have to ask. And since that "ask" is backed by "or we'll take away all your spectrum", "ask" isn't really the right word, o ye who is retreating into linguistics.

Also, you may not realize this, but FISA is a court action, and it's also for *FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE* (thus the F).

You may not realize this, but frequently the name of a law does not completely describe the contents of that law.

Domestic intelligence is a dramatically different ball of wax and yes, does require a warrant

Oh, you sweet summer child.

But even the current telco companies only know a 20mile radius circle - they don't have 5 years of info that at 8:15a you go to starbucks for 15-20 minutes, then you stop by the newspaper stand for 3-5 minutes during your walk to work down a particular road, every mon-fri.

No, they have 5 years of data showing that you were connected to these particular masts on these particular 5 towers, and each tower recorded the signal strength from your phone.

Since they have the mast, they know what direction you were from the tower. The signal strength gives them an approximate radius (interference, buildings, trees and other such things make that radius less accurate). Put together the data from the 5 towers, and you have a very basic triangulation problem that lets them locate you. Make the reasonable assumption that you are on or near the ground, and they've got a location on Earth of where you were.

They won't be able to find you were in that Starbucks, but they'll be able to figure out you were in the strip mall where the Starbucks is located.

Re:Extraordinarily bad idea

[jeff4747]

"First, it's not just which tower. There's a signal strength too" - I think it's cute that you think they're tracking my phone's signal strength

How, exactly, do you think phone companies do tower handoffs? Do you think they randomly select a nearby tower, or do they base it on something like signal strength? Because the phone only gets to ask to talk to a particular tower. The towers get to actually decide.

First, the cell tower isn't changing power or otherwise even caring what my signal strength is

:facepalm:

The tower is recording the signal strength from your handset. Because the handset is the thing that moves and varies it's output. Why on Earth did you think there was something involving variable output from the towers, other than you're desperately scrambling for something?

Second, the signal strength for the vast majority of people has little to do with distance, and more to do with obstructions; in SoCal, it's mountains in the suburbs and then the mesh that covers every house here

Golly, it's almost like I addressed this by mentioning signal strength doesn't give them a very accurate distance from the tower....

Round trip time is better

:facepalm:
So, it turns out not every single phone has the same chips inside it. So they don't take the same time to process messages. Also, it turns out that LTE phones are both code multiplexed and timeslice multiplexed. So a message may be delayed waiting for the next timeslice.

But guess what's in some of those messages? The power level the phone is using to reach the tower.

And neither method can pinpoint you well. For that, you do in fact need more than 1 signal.

You mean like the 4 other towers that also receive the message?

Given recent history...

[Falconnan]

Am I the only person who sees this as a quick way to lock in all of the electronic surveillance by controlling the encryption directly? Because unless end-to-end encryption is locked in, this would be the full keys to the Kingdom.

Re: Nationalize?

[Anonymous Coward]

The popular vote difference was equal to two districts in LA plus one in NYC. You know, the reason why the electoral college exists? People living in Wyoming shouldn't have their elections decided entirely by distant arrogant elitist leftists living in New York.

It's funny how cocksure you sound about November 2018. Eerily similar to how you sounded in October 2016...

Maybe you should consider not being such a smug, condescending asshole? I'd rather be dead than vote for whoever you support, because you seem like a massive piece of shit.

The US is becoming China

[Nocturrne]

There is no way I would connect to a government 5G network. We need to be very careful. Governments all over the world are starting to use the "because China" excuse to take away our privacy and freedom.

Minority report

[markdavis]

Well, I guess I am in a minority on Slashdot, based on the apparent general approval of such a thing. I think it is a dangerous idea. The last thing on earth we need is more and bigger Federal government. Could one reason the Fed would want in on this is to guarantee their easy access to CONTROL and LISTEN IN on the network traffic? Remember, their notion of "Security" typically isn't the same as a consumer's. How many agencies are still SCREAMING for "back doors" in encryption?

Spectrum is limited, of course. And I have no problem with the Fed in control of who leases such spectrum- someone has to manage it. I even think it is a good thing to set and enforce standards and interconnection and communication. But handing them the keys to design, build it, and supposedly pay for it would likely:

1) Cost much, much more than expected- just like most every other Fed run program.
2) Be full of corruption and kickbacks- just like most every other Fed run program.
3) Take much longer to complete- just like most every other Fed run program.

Be careful what you wish for....

Re:Minority report

[AHuxley]

Re "Be careful what you wish for...."

Could end up like another supersonic transport (SST) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... funding .
Someone has to pay for the placement of the 5G telco network all over the US road network to cover networked transport.
Give it to the private sector and pay the private sector for every part of the network to cover the most remote parts, difficult to network of the USA?
Not just networking all the strategic highways and around the mil sites that need telco security.
Let the private sector find the lowest cost workers/robots globally (not in China) and mass produce the network parts? Design in the USA, made in ........
Build a 100% US gov telco factory in Florida? New Jersey? Have that state win the design and scale up a big telco build of products for all of the USA for that 5G generation.

Re How many agencies are still SCREAMING for "back doors"
They got them with PRISM, NSA ANT catalog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... Room 641A, "U.S. secretly tracked billions of calls for decades" (April 7, 2015)
https://www.usatoday.com/story...
That was without a nice US wide 5G network as part of the deal.

Re:Minority report

[CanadianMacFan]

So you are happy to give up your freedom for a decent mobile network connection? Doesn't seem like much when others have given up their lives for it.

Re:Minority report

[AHuxley]

The past generations of mobile networks always got collected on and always will be.
The new part is who will pay for a new 5G network and will it cover more than the strategic highways and big cities. Who gets to bid for the build and who gets to make the hardware.

Nationalizing?

[John.Banister]

This reuters article suggests that they want to build a national 5G network, but not that they want to take over networks built by private carriers.

I'd like to see a 5G speed network built that is just a dumb pipe for IP. Then, they could use the same security for VOIP as is used with the wired internet. What's the point to a 5G "cellular telephone" network? The bandwidth is overkill for voice. If they just provide a dumb pipe, secure data communication is as solved a problem as anything they're going to come up with. The big problem is the name. I'm sure Trump won't want to put money towards anything with "Dumb" in the name.

WTF?

[No Longer an AC]

I don't even know what to make of this. It seems unclear what they actually want to do but "nationalizing" a whole sector of telecommunications is very socialist.

Of course that probably wouldn't be much worse than the oligoply that controls wireless already.

Stingray functionality built in.

[NimbleSquirrel]

The other advantage for the government is that, as they run the network, they can run tracking and call interception on anyone at a whim, without having to rely on involving third party telecommunication companies and silly things like warrants.

Re:TRADE PROTECTIOMISM

[Zontar The Mindless]

A natural progression is for the Chinese to add high grade encryption to all the new handsets they are selling, without back doors, and without
broadcom chips and binary blobs.

Alex, I'll take "Things That Are Never Going To Happen" for $500, please...

Re:But where..

[Zontar The Mindless]

Two of those places border China, and the other's just a short cruise away for the Chinese Navy. Smart.

can't wait for China's dominance in healthcare

[4wdloop]

yes!

Re:But where..

[AHuxley]

Think of the savings on the work force looking after the robots :)

Not buying it...

[Dutchmaan]

I think this has squat to do about China.. This has more to do with controlling the communication channels of everyday Americans.

This is dangerous!

[plopez]

This means the administration, Trump's or others, will have total control of 5G. Backdoors anyone? Traffic monitoring? Incidental eavesdropping? Location tracing of dissidents? Freezing the network to prevent prevent unrest and agitation by subversive elements?

No one here seems to get it.

Re:Grab the popcorn

[HiThere]

To be fair, ObamaCare, which I call RomneyCare, was a bad idea. The insurance companies should never have had a seat at the table. Health care is worthwhile, health *insurance* is a terrible idea, that is only made palatable if someone else appears to be picking up the tab, because the insurance companies always are in there to make a profit.

Universal basic health care should be the platform, and just skip any reference to insurance. If you want insurance, it's appropriate for things that are not only expensive, but also unlikely. Then the purpose is to spread the risk. But everyone needs basic health care, so the insurance model is grossly inefficient and excessively expensive. So major medical insurance is reasonable. But neither insurance for basic health care nor for actually optional services. (Reconstructive plastic surgery for burn victims does not count as optional in my book, even if they are not incapacitated without it.)

Well Infrastructure should never be private

[Casandro]

We have learned that in Germany, where we went from one of the most modern data networks before we sold our phone company, down to something that's worse than in most eastern European countries.

However in the interest of balance. Here's a counter point claiming that private enterprise means competition and therefore democracy. And obviously the oil industry in the US is a prime example for this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Yes, but...

[Casandro]

there are already agreements on that for decades, that wouldn't really make a difference.

Re:Chinese neo-colonial behavior?

[PopeRatzo]

But this is the kicker:

It also suggests America could export its secure 5G technology to protect its allies,

You might want to ask our allies what it means to them when America comes to "protect" them. It usually means a body count. Ask Europe, North Africa and Southeast Asia.

The Serbians have a saying that translated means, "When American comes to help, find a hole and crawl in." It's more colorful in their language and contains references to one's mother's private parts, but that's Serbians for you.

Fuck Trump

[AK Marc]

Here's how I picture it.

"What's the top sector in the US"
"Oil and Coal."
"Have they bribed me?"
"Yes."
"OK, 25% tariff on solar. Who's next?"
"Telecommunications, no bribe."
"Nationalize 5G, Privatize if they spend $500M at Mar-a-Lago."
"Done"

Nationalization of the spectrum (along with the hardware in the tower) is a great idea. Rent it to everyone at the same price. Eliminate monopoly, and force competition on service, not lies about speeds and coverage.

But the cynic in me thinks it's just a public announcement to manipulate, not a serious suggestion.

um

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think you understood the proposal at all.

Having the government build it out and own it, and then lease bits to providers (the spectum is a public asset, after all) is far from "giv[ing] up 5G"... it's GETTING 5G but without the nasty crony-capitalist play of "selling" the bandwidth to some corrupt/evil company who then keep the public from having their way with the bandwith that the public owns. I fail to see how some giant corp "buying" the bandwidth and then overcharging only that portion of the public who are their customers for the use of said bandwidth (the current model) is superior in any way other than as a way to lock-in profits and captive customers for the winning bidder in the bandwidth auction.

Please explain how selling that bandwidth to Verizon, who will then only let users use it if they pay too much AND use whatever China-made phones Verizon chooses to allow in any way protects the public against China.

Another important point:

[Anonymous Coward]

While this would also give direct government surveillance of every cell user everywhere, it would place it back under previous 4th amendment government grounds, rather than in that carefully crafted '3rd parties don't have to respect the 4th amendment' grounds they've been using to spy on us for all these years.

Thanks to some of the recent surveillance bills it is the same amount of spying either way, but if the winds of politics start to blow the other way, it would provide an opportunity to declaw much of this surveillance since they could no longer claim it was third party operated and thus devoid of 4th amendment protections.

Like that doesn't happen now.

[Anonymous Coward]

What exactly is your argument?
That US corporations do not obey an NSL by some TLA, and hence are more trustworthy?

Also, they do their own for-profit spying on top of it!

And it's not like your US government *IS*'nt merely a corporate oligarchy already.

Re:I'm German, and ...

[meerling]

Sure, it's normal for the government to not be profit motivated, but trump is, and I suspect anything he does because of it. He's abusing the country in several ways that already, so why should we not suspect this move as well?

Australia can help!!

[captbollocks]

Just look at how well the National Broadband Network is coming along!! http://www.abc.net.au/news/201...

As long as...

[MitchDev]

...Strong encryption that the government has no backdoor to is implemented as well to prevent government spying....
 

Nationalizing? Neo-Colonialism?

[dpilot]

I'm trying to reconcile nationalizing the 5G network with abolishing network neutrality. Those two just aren't fitting together well.

Same with the whole neo-colonialism thing, and the obvious issue of US vs Chinese neo-colonialism.

This is just silly and full of cognitive dissonance.

Amtrak

[jabberw0k]

Do you want Amtrak running your cell network? No service to Phoenix or Annapolis, and Minneapolis gets signal once a day for an hour at midnight. Before you laugh: Amtrak, the nationalization of our passenger trains, was signed into law by Nixon, a Republican.

Re:Amtrak

[bluegutang]

There's no Amtrak service to Phoenix because it's not competitive with airplanes.

Really 90% of Amtrak service is not competitive with airplanes, and it only still exists because the congresscritters whose districts it goes through refuse to let it be cancelled. Amtrak would be happy to dump it and focus on further improving the popular and profitable routes on the coasts.

Adopt a fiber optic cable

[stooo]

Adopt a fiber optic cable
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic...

One pertinent question

[TVmisGuided]

Who builds the hardware that runs 5G infrastructure?

For that matter, are there any American companies making hardware that supports 4G infrastructure?

Re:I'm German, and ...

[jbengt]

Yeah, except most people aren't wealthy enough to just get up and move to another state without the larger consideration of where they can make a good living.

Great idea?

[Charcharodon]

No.

Set a frequency band. Have a few regulations to make everyone to play nice with each other. Let anyone set up equipment to set up equipment to work within those frequencies. Then butt the fuck out.

Who is really Nationalizing?

[sycodon]

If the 5G carries are slowly being purchased by Chinese companies, which are without doubt creatures of the Chinese Government, then it could be said that the Chinese were the ones actually nationalizing the 5G networks in America.

Development?

[valnar]

Who developed 5G? Because nationalizing a 5G network will work NOW but what about the next iteration? If private companies don't own it, who will do the R&D for 6G? Certainly not the government. Will Verizon or AT&T care anymore if they have to share the wealth? The short term success might be marred by long term goals.

ie. We can also nationalize all medicine and current drugs will be cheaper, but who's gonna do the research on new ones?

There needs to be some level of interest for private companies.

BELL SYSTEM!

[slashhax0r]

Bell System! Bell System! Revive Western Electric!!!

Re:I'm German, and ...

[Twanfox]

The government stepping into a profit-motive is what gets us things like civil asset forfeiture. The government should not be engaging in profit-oriented behaviors for one basic reasons: They have the force of law behind them. A corporation (in an ideal situation) does not control the laws that they are subject to, and some laws may be for them with others against them. A government can make every law for itself without restrictions, as it can write the laws and executes them with the enforcement of the police. At that point, is there any respect for the laws? Is it any different than the worst corporation you can imagine? Would you want that as your governing entity?

Re:Grab the popcorn

[JesseMcDonald]

But neither insurance for basic health care nor for actually optional services.

People take out insurance for "optional" things all the time, and it works well—the key differences from "health insurance" (as it exists today) being that it's a voluntary arrangement for both parties and that it's priced competitively, not politically. Insurance work for almost any situation where you have a risk and wish to exchange it for a predictable cost. As a substitute for charity, or a payment intermediary for routine care, it functions abysmally.

If the feds are going to build a national system..

[Applehu Akbar]

Aside from all ideological objections, the biggest barrier to any kind of large-scale extended infrastructure project is the cost and time of acquiring right-of-way. This is primarily what is killing the California HSR initiative, which despite using all off-the-shelf technology, has been stalled over this squabble.

If the gummint is going to build a national fiber backbone, run it along the sides of the Interstate Highway System for zero right-of-way cost. Fiber could be buried for the most part under the right shoulder of existing pavement, or where appropriate, in the median. At each major exit, have a set of tap points that local ISPs would compete and contract for access to, serving the local area along the interchange road. Let one tap at each of these points be reserved for local volunteer organizations, hobbyist and user groups with an interest in getting licensed to operate "ham Internet" service.

The tag line for such a backbone might be "You already know where it goes. You already know where to access it."

Re:China, dominant..?

[Verdatum]

They address this in the memo. It's true that Europe/Finland once dominated wireless telecom, but this is no longer the case. China is really really big, and everyone there uses Huawei/ZTE. And the Chinese hardware sells cheaper. As to patents, they don't care about patents. Much of the innovation this round is software related; much less hardware innovation. Software patents are a bear to win, and nothing in the upcoming 5G standard is going to be standing behind a patent wall. It has to be possible to develop an alternative implementation that still meets the standard. That said, I don't believe that a government operated network is the solution to this. For one thing, there's no requirement that 5G be interconnected. 5G primarily lends itself to benefits within the realm of what's known as "Fixed mobile". It works best when you put a directional antenna on your roof which points at a basestation which either acts as a relay, or has a fiber connection to the Internet. From there, you connect your wireless devices via 802.11. The need to have perfect coverage all along the roads and in the woods and such is not important; handoff (switching between two towers without losing your call) is not important. You use 3G/4G for all that stuff. I'm all for government resources being spent to improve broadband speeds in rural areas, and honestly, 5G is a pretty effective way to accomplish it, but the problems of it being federal run seem to outweigh the benefits. State or local-run networks on the other hand, may make more sense. Then federal funds can be provided to subsidize installation and maintenance as appropriate.

Re:But where..

[Verdatum]

If I'm reading the memo right, they're implying that they would create the network using European manufacturers, but not dismissing the possibility of setting up American entities (which basically don't exist right now). Alcatel-Lucent, Nokia, and Ericsson.

Re:Chinese neo-colonial behavior?

[jwhyche]

The Serbians have a saying that translated means,

No they don't, or none that I can find. I even asked a Serbian here at work and he has never heard of it Can you provide a direct citation complete with 'colorful' language?

Re:Chinese neo-colonial behavior?

[PopeRatzo]

Ako Amerikanka nudi pomoc, mrsh u pichku materinu

Australia's NBN Fiasco

[aberglas]

So here in Oz, the government decided to give every on fibre to the home, forgetting the costs. It was hailed as a road to the future. It was praised by the Tech community -- 100 mhz to each house. The internet super highway.

But there was no business plan. No costing of alternatives. And most importantly, no proper analysis of real need which was for people without broadband rather than for higher capacity for those with it.

Then the government changed, and they went to fibre to the node + cable. Many tech people screamed "Fraudband" because this would deliver only 25mhz, not 100mhz.

But here is the kicker. Most people do not need 100hz, and are not willing to pay for it. Most households are not even willing to pay for 25mhz. It only takes 2mhz to watch DVD quality Netflix, and that is all many households need.

The price of mobile data is crashing down. Now about $5/Gig. Soon $1/Gig. (No unlimited but artificially limited plans in Oz.) At that point it starts to become cheaper than the NBN. And many people are choosing to go mobile INSTEAD of the NBN.

If half (say) of the population end up avoiding the NBN, the fixed cost economics are a disaster, and the taxpayer will end up footing even more the bill.

The moral is the way that government could be swayed by the Tech crowd into the stupid policy. Private enterprise, when their own money is on the line, tend to be more pragmatic, for better or worse.

Re:Chinese neo-colonial behavior?

[jwhyche]

Ako Amerikanka nudi pomoc, mrsh u pichku materinu

Doing some research with google and bing translators this quote still doesn't seem to be a true Serbian saying. After doing a few translations and comparing to results on google I got absolutely no matches for ether the original quote or the original quote. I think some one was having some fun at your expense. Don't worry though. Lots of people have been burned by not properly researching their BS, err I mean quotations.

I love reading and collecting quotes. Some of my favorite are by Mark Twain. The following one is one so many of us should learn to live by.

qaqmeH qoH puS 'oH poS je Hoch Hon teq 'e' DaHar SoQ nuj 'ej nuvpu' yInISQo'.

I think, like Shakespeare, it rolls off the tongue better when its spoken in the original Klingon.

Re:Chinese neo-colonial behavior?

[PopeRatzo]

Doing some research with google and bing translators this quote still doesn't seem to be a true Serbian saying.

It really is a Serbian saying. It became well-known among Serbs during the 1990s, when the US (NATO) was bombing the hell out of Belgrade, destroying the Academy of Science, some 14th century churches, and the TV station, among other things. Of course, it could have been strictly a Beograd thing, since the rest of the country has their own reasons for hating Americans.

However, if you ask any Serb about u pichku materinu ("you're mother's pussy"), you will find that it's probably the most popular colloquial phrase in Serbian. And "crawling back into your mother's pussy" is an extremely common formulation. It's added to practically everything. Serbs are very creative at cussing. The one that really kind of took me aback the first time I visited there (I've been there quite a lot) is "fuck your God". I had to double check with someone because my Serbian was not very good at the time and I wasn't sure what I'd heard. It's a curse that is very common in former Soviet satellite or client states.

If you want an example of just how over the top Serbians can be when they curse, check out this post-game interview with Serbian basketball star Darko Milii. He felt he had been wronged by the referree, and describes in great detail what he's going to do to the ref's mother, daughter, grandmother and dog. Milii would later be drafted 2nd overall in the 2003 NBA (after Lebron James and ahead of Carmelo, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh) and would play for the Detroit Pistons.

https://youtu.be/Sc5E3kVIs3s

Electronic Cottage...

[Doctrinsograce]

We should be working hard to make it easy to work from home... We need the bandwidth to do this... Telepresence should be something we diligently pursue. Imagine taking all that Federal money building trains and such, and pouring it into this industry! Don't move bodies... move minds!

Total lack of understanding...

[MercTech]

The federal government cannot take over a 5G network. .. First reason is that there is no 5G network yet. With the history of the large cellular companies being totally reluctant to improve infrastructure I doubt it will happen this decade. We don't even have a 4G network in the U.S. There is limited penetration of 4Glte which is 3G+ (or 4G light) elsewhere in the world. .. Second reason is that the bandwidth doesn't belong to the populace but companies LEASE the radio bandwidth and the leases are done by competitive bid. ALL radio traffic in a country is governed by international treaty. In the U.S. the agency that oversees radio usage is the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Yep, this was a bit of fake news written by someone that has no foggy clue about radio frequency licensing.

Re: Nationalize?

[david_thornley]

However, you seem to have no qualms about people in New York having their elections decided entirely by country hicks (should I add some more adjectives to that to balance "distant arrogant elitist leftists"?