Good morning. My name is John Mayo.
I am a professor of economics, business, and public policy at Georgetown University
and I am also the executive director of the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy
which is our host today
For my part I am really very excited
about what I think will be a fresh
discussion of competition and 5G, and
when I utter those words: "fresh,"
"competition," and "5G," some of you may be a little skeptical because the discussion
of competition and 5G has been part of
the public discussion for months now.
So in some ways your skepticism is
warranted. Indeed if you were to look at
doing an internet search (which I did) on
the words competition, and 5g you'll
get scores of hits: you'll get speeches,
you'll get blog posts, you'll get academic articles,
you'll get popular articles....
So there are lots of people opining on the subject of competition in 5G
But if you look at those articles, speeches, and blogs
What you'll see is that they all have an overwhelming consistency
The overwhelming consistency is that they talk about competition in a very
mercantilist fashion
Now what do I mean by competition in a mercantilist fashion?
For those of you who are not steeped in 16th century economic history, let me let
me back up just one moment
and explain myself:
If you'll remember from your schooling
that in the 16th century competition
largely played out in the discussion of
competition largely played out around
competition among city-states among
among nation-states England Spain Italy
Portugal all were using at that time the
vehicle of the high seas to compete for
global economic success and if you
fast-forward today through the to those
articles speeches blogs I just discussed
what you will see is that they all
almost all have that same propensity
they discuss global economic success in
the context of a discussion of
competition among nation states how is
China going to fare relative the United
States has the u.s. can unfair relative
to Europe those are important questions
no doubt about it
that's what's been in the news what
hasn't been in the news what is missed
by that discussion is a set of
competition questions that micro
economists especially tend to focus on
as a matter of of course in this case
what will the development of 5g do to
alter the competitive landscape for
broadband delivery broadband services
what will the development of 5g do to
alter the competitive environment in the
internet ecosystem more broadly what
will 5g do to enhance or alter the
competitive landscape of the way goods
and services across the economy are
delivered what public policies what
economic policies can be enacted or
ought to be enacted today to complement
and enhance that competition that is
possible by 5g those are crucial
critical questions that to this point
are still fresh and ripe for discussion
the stakes couldn't be any higher firms
in the United States are spending tens
of billions of dollars to develop 5g
technology and it's absolutely clear
that that the benefits of those
investments are either going to be
enhanced or diminished based on the
answers to the questions I just laid out
so I for one am very very excited about
this discussion I think it promises to
be fresh it involves both a panel and
you we have I looked at the list of
people in here it's a marvelous list and
there are lots of experts in the
audience that could and and have in fact
pit on the diets here
for the center in in events in the past
so thank you all for coming let me not
take any more time I want
the panel over to my colleague Carolyn
Brandon who is a senior industry and
innovation fellow at the Georgetown
Center for business and public policy a
student of the industry for a while now
in telecommunications wireless Internet
and it's one of the great experts in the
country and I'll let her introduce what
is truly a distinguished panel and I
think it promises to be a fresh
discussion thank you very much for
coming all right thank you all I'm gonna
try to bring the conversation from 17th
century up to 21st and you guys can let
me know if that successful heat dome has
moved on and I got a parking space right
out front on Mass Ave at 9:40 so I think
this is an auspicious start to our
conversation today really wanted to and
again thank you all for coming because
personally when I hear 5g I just kind of
want to tune it out it's it's sort of
overtaking that neutrality as the most
discussed topic these days that we all
feel we've run out of things to say
however when you take a look and hear
from the experts that we have with us
today as John highlighted in his remarks
there are elements of understanding what
5g is and why it's relevant and what it
portends for us as as a country and are
you in our economy is not something that
a lot of people have dug into and I
think we're going to cover that ground
today in in some depth and I think maybe
open up a new avenue of discourse about
this topic called 5g so we are joined we
have an economist who spent some time at
the FCC taking a look at macro issues
around spectrum and making more spectrum
available and sort of what does that
mean when you get more spectrum into the
hands of network operators not just for
the industry called Wireless but
generally across the as John said the
internet ecosystem we're also joined by
someone who is going to share her
perspective on how all of this my tree
down to impact consumers and not just
from the perspective of consumer welfare
we are also joined by somebody who has
spent time with folks developing
software very often category
as the edge or the app economy app
economy really only talking about a very
narrow subsection of what goes on within
the software industry and I think he's
going to have some really interesting
observations about what folks in that
space are thinking about as they are
making their business plans and knowing
that they have access to this thing
called 5g networks and then certainly
not last and not least and given that
it's earnings season really remarkable
that she was able to get here from
Chicago this morning is somebody who has
been talked about analyzing and thinking
about this industry for a long time and
and I think what she's going to do is
help us understand the financial
implications of all of the stuff that
we've been talking about as well as to
give us a sense of what the evolving
business models are not just from the
people who provide broadband access but
folks who rely on those access
connections and high-speed capabilities
of 5g to do what they do and before we
get into the conversation and actually
point out who's who here I just wanted
to call your attention to there's
there's two primers we did not print
them out for everybody here because we
want to save some trees but what we can
do is we will make links available to
folks who have RSVP'd so all of you here
in the room this is a very in-depth look
at 5g it talks about the spectrum bounds
it talks about the evolving business
models it talks about the history
leading up to 5g and where it came from
as well as you know some ideas about
where it might head in the future so I
highly recommend when you guys have a
minute or two to take a look at both
this and in a second 5g primer that
we've that we were given by Wells Fargo
so weird Jen Fritchie no surprise is the
gal I was talking about from Wells Fargo
Financial Analysts managing director and
most impressive mom of multiple children
and somehow managed to get here from
Chicago this morning we've got Marc
McCarthy who was a fellow at Georgetown
and most recently was with the software
industry association we've got Anna
Maria Kovacs who is a scholar at
Georgetown and has I think many of you
have read her stuff in terms of analysts
reports back in the day she's also a
long-term student and observer of the
industry and we have promised who is
most recently with the Brattle group and
before that was at the FCC in the
wireless Bureau so without further ado I
was wondering if perhaps from it you
could set the framework for what we're
talking about here a quick refresher
we're not really gonna get into the
technology what it is how it operates
I'm assuming you guys have heard enough
about that understand it if there are
things you want to talk about offline in
terms of the technical pieces happy to
talk to you about those questions but I
think we're just gonna assume you you
already know what fudgie is and take the
conversation from there but with that
said if you could just you know put this
in context from a spectrum perspective
and macroeconomic impact that I think
you have spent some time researching and
quantifying sure thank you couldn't help
but start with a cartoon if I can get it
up we'll see what we want to do today as
Carolyn mentioned is actually move a
little bit away from what the cartoon
actually depicts the entire conversation
has been about the global competitive
edge whether the u.s. is losing the
competitive edge and the entire spectrum
discussion has also been in terms of we
are not doing enough mid-band China's
doing more mid-band we're doing
millimeter-wave are we losing an edge
and during this process I think we are
losing a lot of the actual discussions
we should be having and as Carolyn
mentioned I think for the panel today
our task is to refocus the discussion on
what it is that US as a country can do
and all of us who are students of this
industry can do to move it forward so
very briefly we've probably all seen
this multiple times three types of
frequency you know low for the high
frequency pretend it's called mid band
and then the millimeter wave band
basically if you think about what it
looks like the low frequency which was
supposed to be this by the way up the
spectrum trifecta is something that Tom
wheeler coined a while ago I don't know
if any of you are racing people it's
sort of a racing terminology basically
said 5g for the first time uses all
three types of spectrum for the longest
time at the FCC when we were doing
spectrum auctions we used to talk about
beach-front spectrum and if you ever
looked at any of our competition reports
the entire narrative was in terms of sub
1 gigahertz spectrum beachfront the
value of that spectrum and there wasn't
enough attention paid even till about
2015 when we started thinking about sort
of mid band to other kinds of spectrum
5g has changed this conversation
entirely
so with 5g what are we talking about we
all think about sort of 5g the Internet
of Things is 5g and the Internet of
Things the same second sort of what is
it about 5g that makes it very different
from the 4G LTE connections in my mind
it's sort of three basic things very
high speed very low latency and the
ability to accommodate massive amounts
of traffic so if you're thinking of sort
of late in latency terms it's about one
millisecond and sort of the example I
often like to give is suppose you're
travelling in sort of these a vehicle
that's an autonomous vehicle if you
apply the brakes and there's a hundred
milliseconds latency the car moves about
ten feet we cannot have that happen
whereas with 5g that is what is going to
enable your connected cars and connected
homes especially things that are on the
move where you cannot have a huge amount
of latency that's what 5g is going to
for us today so what it is that make
that is going to make 5g successful in
my mind there are two buckets that you
can put it in one is regulatory
innovation and the other is private
innovation so let's talk a little bit
about the two very briefly I know other
panelists are going to talk more about
this
so in regulatory innovation there are
basically three or four things that we
might want to focus on when talking
about 5g the first is the Commission has
moved ahead in thinking about the
flexible use and sort of opportunistic
use of the spectrum and the first band
that comes to mind is the CB RS or the
3.5 gigahertz band it sort of started in
2015 and back to after years of
negotiation with the federal
government's agencies and for the first
time this band had a very novel system
of sharing so the moment we think of
sharing CB RS comes to mind
it had three kinds of users the priority
access users the general access users
and the unlicensed and till today there
is technology being developed for
dynamic sharing in this band so that
this flexible approach that the policy
makers and technical and the
technologists came up with can actually
be successfully implemented in terms of
so the economics and the policy there
are you know the SAS or the system
administrators being set up to
facilitate such a sharing mechanism so
that is definitely one of the big
innovations in this policy arena that is
going to bring more bit mid band
spectrum one thing to remember that I
think for me I used to often forget a
lot of the spectrum is not Greenfield
there's somebody already in there how do
we make sure to accommodate that person
both in terms of making them
economically whole and also in terms of
issues of interference and the CBR s
band I think is
a poster child for that kind of sharing
mechanism the second regulatory
innovation that we've all sort of heard
a lot about in what the FCC has been
doing in the past couple of years is
flexible use inflexible use basically
what the FCC is trying to do is say look
given the current technology are given
sort of the current use of bands and how
efficiently you can use bands you don't
need the whole spectrum is there a way
in which we can auction off a part of
the spectrum and use it for terrestrial
mobile I won't get into the c-band
debate but a lot of the debate now is
surrounding sort of the see band and how
much of the see band can the satellite
guys really give up for mobile
terrestrial use and there are a lot of
other bands that are also being
designated for flexible use so in my
mind that's an extremely important
development that is going to push 5g
forward because there is a need for
spectrum and as somebody told me last
year it was all about millimeter wave
now it's mid band that's a sweet spot so
a lot of the discussion that you hear in
terms of 5g is in terms of the mid band
and one of the other reasons is in terms
of popular rhetoric Europe China a lot
of the other countries have deployed mid
band the US till now has not deployed
mid band for 5g a lot of it has been in
terms of millimeter wave and therefore
there is a push to put more mid band
spectrum in 5g the third innovation is
the federal and non-federal sharing that
goes partly to sort of the CBR SVN and
other bands that a lot of you are
familiar with and there is certain
amount of inertia and part of federal
agencies to share specially Department
of Defense who sits on a fairly large
chunk of spectrum and there are very
valid technical reasons and I think the
FCC and other agencies are working hard
through it hard through the technical
issues there's this huge program called
sensor which is trying to look into
sharing bands
nowa ban the weather satellite band very
controversial issues but there is a lot
of effort to bring different kinds of
spectrum into this 5g mix can I just
interject and just remind the audience
of one point and that is one of the
features of 5g is the ability to
leverage what my daughter would call
ginormous sized channels so right now in
the United States and around the world
for the most part before 5g you had
licenses for spectrum use that were
relatively quote narrow so a 20
megahertz license or a 10 megahertz
license or a 5 megahertz license what
the engineers are now saying is that you
need multiples of potentially hundreds
of megahertz wide channels to really
perfect the capability that is being
built into 5g so what I hear you saying
is you have these innovations really on
the technology of how you are able to
use spectrum but in part it's been
driven at the regulatory level for the
FCC to look at what rules it needs to
modify to enable that because of the
excitement and expected demand for these
5g family of services and network
capabilities is that relevant absolutely
ok and on the large channel size I think
that's an excellent point because if any
of you follow sort of the auctions the
24 gigahertz auction there's a marked
difference between the 200 megahertz
channels the price they went for it was
I think a third of a cent if I remember
correctly versus the 500 megahertz
Channel which was like 1.2 cents it's a
huge difference between you know channel
sizes which we have not seen before so
there is a lot of potential for research
and you know Brattle is sort of looking
into what it is that drives the value of
these millimeter wave spectrum and 5g
it's nothing like we've seen before in
the low of the mid bands so very good
sort of segue I think into the next
point which is so what are the private
innovations
that will drive 5g so some of the
private innovations obviously efficient
spectrum use dynamic spectrum sharing
there are all kinds of receiver
performance issues we've sort of heard
about the 5g new radio and the software
that goes along with it I'm primarily
going to focus on the first two things
very briefly so when we talk about
efficient spectrum use one of the first
things when I was the FCC and we were
talking about getting data from the
providers we were told the way you get
data and coverage data and spectrum data
does not make sense anymore now we have
carrier aggregation so when you tell me
to report something by spectrum band we
are not sure what we have to report and
that was one of the first eyeopener's
for us thinking about okay the landscape
really has changed and as regulators I
think at that point a lot of us started
rethinking what the landscape would look
like so the carrier aggregation is
definitely in the forefront for a lot of
cases you see sort of the reuse and
repurposing of lobe and spectrums such
as the 600 megahertz and it's used in
serve as a 5g spectrum band the 3.5 has
these dynamic sharing issues and there's
technology that's being developed for
that and there's a whole issue about
licensed unlicensed lte-u and how that
fits into this entire thing and I think
5g at its core is going to make sort of
all this come together and deliver very
fast speeds low latency and bring the
Internet of Things together to briefly
close as an economist I sort of have to
have an economic impact slide otherwise
I'm not doing my job so the way I think
about it and this is sort of from me
teaching like business classes at
Brandeis and people telling me you
always eat a two by two unless you have
a two by two you're gonna do is your MBA
students so this is my two by two for
today when I think about the economic
impact I think about sorry I think about
it
sorry I think about it in to the four
dimensions so in two dimensions you have
the direct and indirect economic effects
and along the horizontal dimension you
have things you can quantify really well
and things that are not as easily
quantifiable so let's talk about the
things that is a direct impact of sort
of this spectrum at this 5g and what's
quantifiable so if we think about
spectrum value so recently at Brattle we
did sort of a valuation analysis where
we valued sort of the spectrum bands a
legacy spectrum bands including sort of
till auction one or two at about like
505 billion dollars about 500 plus
billion dollars and this is adjusting
for you know increase in supply
decreases in prices maturity of bands
and all the factors that you can think
about and when you're thinking about
what it is that drives the value of a
spectrum and so that's sort of a direct
value that you can have the second
direct value is the revenues of the
wireless industry and how 5g is going to
affect the revenues of the wireless
industry the third is in terms of
employment just purely how much does the
wireless industry employ this is not
your app economy this is nothing else
this is just the direct impact of the
wireless economy the next is investment
how much are these companies investing
so currently this is sort of to the tune
of about twenty seven twenty eight
billion dollars a year so that that's
sort of your direct impact bucket the
second impact which is indirect but we
can still quantify it as economists is I
sort of tend to think about two things
it's multiplier effect so in general if
you think about an input-output analysis
one what is the effect on things like
consumer surplus what is the effect on
employment so $1 spent in the wireless
industry how much employment does it
generate elsewhere in the economy so I
think we had sort of an earlier paper
that pegged it around
2015 was about seven jobs for every job
generated in the wireless industry
generated seven other jobs in other
parts of the economy let's see and in
general when we've estimated the
multiplier it's been about 10 to 20
times so you know in trillions of
dollars if you're thinking about how
much the actual wireless industry sort
of generates versus the total impact and
with 5g this is only going to increase
so this is an extremely important sort
of piece of the economy currently in
terms of the direct but non-quantifiable
effects there's a lot of innovation
going on as we know kind of hard to
quantify the effect you can look at sort
of you know patenting statistics
copyright statistics and get at some of
the innovation effects that way and some
of it does flow through sort of the
entire economy as well and so the non
quantifiable but indirect benefit is
sort of this first mover advantage and
sort of the potential impact I've been
thinking a lot about why are people
concerned about the fact that US is not
using mid-band and u.s. is using only
high band spectrum is it really going to
disadvantage us in a certain way and
while thinking about it and there are
experts who I would love to hear back
from it seems like that the millimeter
wave given its very low latency is kind
of the way to go in the future so by not
deploying millimeter wave aggressively
in other parts of the world in the
future all those apps that are being
developed for the millimeter wave and
Internet of Things the US might actually
get a first mover advantage in all the
technology that's related to the
millimeter wave so with that note I will
thank you very very much an especially
focus and and we'll make these slides
available to everybody here as well the
the point that you were making in the
lower left quadrant which is this first
mover advantage and sort of the ties in
to John's point on nation
States competing and at the end of the
day I think there is broad agreement
that the reason why you see and hear so
much these days about US versus China
and and we'll just you know go right to
one of the the hot topics in the news
these days Huawei well back in the day
it used to be Wow way was crappy
equipment and it was really cheap fast
forward Huawei equipment is actually
really good and really cheap and so
being able to be the country that is
setting the technical standards for
equipment and building on a foundational
level with your equipment other people's
5 g 5g networks provides you with
economic opportunity that is definitely
putting you as a country it over in an
in an advantageous position compared to
other countries that are poor not
perhaps not in that role so it's really
less about the spying etcetera that
motivates this conversation in focus and
it's really more about the business
opportunities not just for the telecom
providers themselves but across the
economy which is in large part
responsible for this u.s. be China hot
topic Jen can we roll over to you and
can you give us a sense sort of what are
you seeing the impact of 5g I know there
was a many years where it was this is
the year of data this is the year of
data this is the year of data and I
think everybody got tired of waiting for
the year of the data and then all of a
sudden it sort of happened
I think 5g has been talked about for a
couple of years and yet we still do not
have mass-produced
you know phones that are 5g capable and
I think for your average consumer other
than seeing this in the headlines a lot
I think most people are like alright
what's 5 do you gonna do for me so can
you talk a little bit about you know
what you're seeing amongst the companies
and industry sections that your monitor
you know that you look at and think
about
and then maybe share your thoughts about
where you see 5g capability enabling
maybe other parts of the the economy
beyond just the tech and telecom space
sure sure so first thank you both for
having me it's a great honor to be here
but 5g yeah it's kind of the buzzword
certainly these days but how it
the consists of just dividing your
questioned consumer and enterprise for
consumer if you're a t-mobile customer
or not you should write John ledger a
thank you note because of that because
your bills have come down if you're an
eighteen t Verizon or Sprint user
because of the disruptive nature of
t-mobile its aggressive pricing that
they've done and I just say that because
we've almost been desensitized to think
that our Wireless bills are going down
not up so as you get a new 5g phone I
personally think it's gonna be really
hard to convince the consumer especially
the younger consumer millennial to run
out and pay pick your number ten to
fifteen dollars more per month for a
faster low latency speed that's going to
be a hard sell it's going to be a
different type of service that's gonna
have to appeal to the consumer and to
your point on the handsets you know
really the year the data didn't come
till June of 2007 when the first iPhone
model came out and so that you really
are weaning on the devices to drive that
acceptance so that's kind of a hard
place to be for enterprise I think it's
a very different story I think that I'm
definitely in the AT&T camp where they
believe that eight enterprise is gonna
be the first to embrace 5g and you look
at things like CB RS that Proma
mentioned that is already there's so
many enterprises I think there's
publicly stated about an eighty to
ninety that are already testing CB RS
yet the the spectrum isn't really fully
available that that gives us a very
interesting insight as to the carrier
the enterprise's are very much looking
for ways to use 5g to make themselves
more efficient now that is easy to say
but that there's so many layers of that
it's probably you know very specific to
each different enterprise silo like Bank
II and that I'm in is gonna be very
different than consumer auto which but
all with making it more efficient for
consumer I think it's going to be I'll
call them like little niche e-products
initially when I was at Mobile World
Congress someone was it was actually the
Verizon booth was displaying you know
MVR are are definitely pegged as
consumer products for 5g and they
modeled if your child has a a peanut
allergy for example I don't have my
phone with me but you just go down the
grocery aisle and instead of taking out
your glasses and reading the label of
that it will just say you know no move
on if you just barcode it and that is
that something as a mother that we'd pay
eight dollars for a month
most definitely so I think there's gonna
be thousands of examples like that but
it's probably going to be very niche e
products in terms of your question as to
who's winning first we write this in our
primer but it's a chicken and egg
scenario in that I don't know the egg
doesn't come to that chicken is built
and that chicken in this scenario is the
infrastructure so think of things like
fiber small cell spectrum we talked
about those are the initial winners here
because the train has already left the
station AT&T is already marketing around
five GE I have many friends who think
that they already have 5g even though
they really don't but that is a carrier
that that they cannot have 5g to that
infrastructure is late so just to go
back just to kind of bring a full circle
here and again I'm cheating from the
slide deck that will make available to
everybody in terms of the use cases and
that's always a challenge right in part
what we have to do for folks inside the
beltway especially folks on the hill and
that the agencies is to capture you know
their attention and you know I think
I've often been asked yeah I get the
whole remote caught you know autonomous
vehicles and I get remote surgery what
else is gonna be out there that's
actually really cool that we will be
able to do with 5g that we can't do now
and I was wondering are there anything
you've seen or companies like I know you
just said for the consumer side it's
really going to be more niche e products
but in terms of the use cases anything
across automotive healthcare
transportation or any of the other sort
of most likely to be leveraging 5g for
more efficiency
it's it's such an open question I mean
think the low-latency is huge and so how
that manifests itself I mean I think
Verizon is doing a very interesting
thing on the consumer they're going
right after the heart of the cable
business so if you think of their fixed
Wireless initiative which essentially is
taking five are close to my home and
then using for that last 2,000 feet
millimeter wave I mean that is real
implications for the cable business I
mean if Verizon is essential is
successful there it's were essentially
talking about the unque baleen of cable
and so a cable is really focused on
broadband what does that mean for them
which offers like going down the
decision tree of thought if your Comcast
who we know is very smart do you want to
be a wireless partnership through with
someone like Verizon through an MV you
know if they're going after your core
business or do you say uncle I'm gonna
shift and own Wireless in a more formal
way so that's like one example I mean I
know that there have been some raised
eyebrows as to the virtue of various
ISPs getting into the content business
but from the uneducated observer
obviously that strategy is not
predicated on 5g per se but do you see
5g as being giving some of these
companies the ability to step into those
sorts of market areas that they have not
really engaged in and sort of become a
disruptor in the entertainment business
and potentially be a disruptor in in an
you know film I don't see DT into
getting into the garbage disposal
business you know as a general matter
beyond just providing a broadband
connection has it opened the door for
these sorts of companies who are
building the 5g networks to get into
other stuff yes and I think we saw that
with AT&T through their purchase of Time
Warner and that you know AT&T as I watch
my own kids consume content I actually
think they're really onto something but
AT&T has somewhat of a heroic task in
front of them but they have to prove
that owning the pipe and owning the
content gives them an advantage versus
Amazon Netflix etc so you know Netflix
has made a lot of money on
my guys pipes that they haven't had to
pay to build out so I think that is
going to be a real open question for
AT&T if they can prove it they have made
the right that if they had can't then I
would say Verizon's made the right thing
because they're essentially doubling
down on a network and future proofing
their network in a fiber centric sort of
way I thought what and I we will move on
I promise so much but I I thought it was
interesting the sorts of companies you
were listing as whether or not 18t could
compete with them or and I think the
same holds true for Verizon our folks
like Amazon not something that a 5-10
years ago people would normally put into
a conversation about who are the ISPs
competing with I don't know that most
folks were thinking about Amazon as
being in that space right so I think
that also begins to answer the the big
picture question which is will the
network technology itself enable
different kinds of business models and
different kinds of competition I mean it
sounds like the answer is yes yes yes I
firmly believe that but it's just how it
shakes out I think you like a question
so Marc sitting quietly over there
coming from a software perspective or I
guess first and foremost what what do
you think 5g let's just assume
ubiquitous 5g networks around the
country relevant at all to to your
former colleagues are they aware of it
are they thinking about it what what's
how was this relevant you remind me of
the the old economist joke which has the
economists in a desert island and no way
to open up the cans of food that are
around so he just says assume a can
opener so you've got the ubiquitous
network everywhere and then what San
yeah thank you for having me and John
especially and it's good to see so many
familiar faces out here I asked him some
friends of mine over the weekend I told
my was gonna do this and I said so what
do you what do you think you know 5g is
good for and it looked at me in blanked
and and one of them said well
how about friends in the Metro I said
well okay but I do think that's that's
at least part of it I mean that 5g could
potentially allow you to download a two
hour movie in 3.6 seconds 4G it's six
minutes and so from the point of view of
the consumer that's the difference
between a hundred megabits per second
and ten gigabits per second so so it
really is going to make a difference in
speed but I'm gonna focus on the
benefits that come from a different
feature which is that they they allow
for a massive increase in connected
devices at a lower latency and that
really means talking about smart
connected devices both for homes and and
for and for business and we touched on
this a little bit before but you've
already got you know the smart house
you've got the light bulbs and the
thermostats and the security cameras and
the refrigerators and the mattresses and
the smart speakers and the bathroom
scales and all that stuff don't forget
about the Pampers don't forget about the
Pampers he'll tell you when you want to
be due and so there'll be more of that
and it'll extend to mobile there might
be mobile virtual reality or augmented
reality applications but it'll be
largely the Nicci products that were
just mentioned probably more interesting
maybe more important from the point of
view of the actual launch as the
enterprise IOT we you have smart
connected devices but they're in the in
the workplace so that this will really
enable a massive increase in the
decentralized mobile workplace where you
can have huge increases in productivity
with people connected in real time in
manufacturing you'll have industrial
automation energy utilities agriculture
defense all of these areas of our
industry will benefit from the increased
speeds and the lower latency and the
massive capacity of 5g so from the point
of view of software what you're seeing
is the massive spread of computers
computers will be everywhere and what
the computers need computers need to be
programmed computers need software
and so this is a huge opportunity for
for the industry what what I want to do
instead of detailing the the products
that might be coming because that really
is only limited by the imagination of
the people involved I want to focus on
some of the policy issues and concerns
that may if they're not addressed
properly create some barriers to of the
expansion of this the first one is
safety connected computers are now in
mission-critical applications if you're
if you're connected insulin pump or your
pacemaker goes down that's actually a
lot more serious than if you're
bookseller and makes a mistake in book
recommendation for you so so accuracy
and reliability of the system and the
software that's involved in it really
becomes becomes key a second issue is
information security not the Russian
spying understood the Chinese buying as
well although we'll get to that this is
the exposure two to five G connected
devices creates another vector of attack
not just on the device but but on all
the devices that it's connected to and
and it's not just theft of information
that that's a worry it's a it's a safe
operation of the systems the malicious
actors don't want to just steal things
they want to change the operation of
things so that they become dangerous or
unreliable and that's a huge huge
security situation that has to be dealt
with these systems are expensive to
develop and there's a possibility that
companies will be tempted to skimp on
security which would not be a very good
thing for them or for our country Bruce
Schneier woman av you know as a security
expert he's a great and a scary book on
this topic with a clickbait title it's
called click here to kill everyone and
it's about the security risks of
connected devices and he recommends a
dedicated information security agency
with authority to prescribe standard
something like that might actually be
necessary you know if the industry is
gonna get off the ground in a safe
fashion liability issues you know these
are complex systems they're not just
simple devices that can easily go wrong
in a in a limited and confined way
they're they're complex systems with
tight integration and accidents are to
be expected even even normal and so
whose responsibility is it when
something goes wrong is it the
manufacturer is it a software designer
no of course not
is it the user is it the connectivity
provider we've seen this discussion
begin with autonomous vehicles and and
we've seen proposals because of the the
problem associated with attributing
causality when when these systems go
wrong for for no-fault insurance where
everybody who involved just throws money
into a pot and and people who have been
damaged by a problem would get to be
compensated in that way control of data
you know that everyone's been talking
about the massive increase of
information that will flow from these
connected devices who gets to who gets
to use it same series of possibilities
is it it's the it's the manufacturer the
software designer the connectivity
provider maybe user control would be you
know ideal and the privacy rules we'll
get to that and that raises the privacy
and surveillance issues companies are
going to want to track people and things
and that raises the privacy issue but
governments of course are going to want
to keep track of people of interest
possible terrorists or criminals what
are the rules again it may not put make
ultimate sense to put the decisions on
this purely on the hand of the ultimate
user people have talked about the
conflict with China oh I have to do is
say Huawei and ZTE and that's all you
need this say in that but there are to
conclude some competition policy issues
John raise the question whether this
will create new opportunities
for competition and of course it will
lots of companies will be trying to get
into the game and provide products and
services and vigorous competition with
each other but but there are some
economic factors that could lead to
difficulties and I think competition
authorities need to be alert to them it
is an industry with massive scale
economies there will be customization
that will be based on kartik usage data
and and and network effects will be
present in in a market these will all
failure tend to favor big companies and
they'll also create barriers to
expansion swisstubers switching an entry
and so these might create the economic
problem of concentration and
consolidation in the market even if it
starts off vibrantly competitive these
forces may very well lead to economic
problems down the line people are
already beginning to think about
antitrust remedies like data portability
or data sharing and interoperability as
ways to get ahead of those particular
problems so let me stop there and look
forward to the rest of their discussion
annamaria how is all of this do you
think going to impact your average
consumer aside from having access to a
plethora of Nicci products which i think
is now a new term
help us understand how all this gets the
primary use the primary use is clearly
going to be video but that's where most
of the date data is going to be and to
translate latency and speaking
essentially what you're talking about is
very rapid downloads with no buffering
effectively so it becomes a lot more
appealing particularly to do mobile use
as has been said before there are other
uses which are arguably in many ways
more important but are not going to be
using as much of the network things like
robotic surgery for example which has
been mentioned you don't want any
buffering when you are doing your
surgery remotely and for rural areas
particularly the ability to access
surgeons in major metro areas in
community hospitals which don't have
those kinds of surgeons could be very
important so there are a number of
life-saving uses that that are going to
be possible clearly for things like
autonomous driving that could be very
important to senior citizens who at some
point are no longer driving themselves
and perhaps don't want to rely on uber
or lyft or or others so that again
becomes one form of potential
competition where machines can take over
some things that are currently being
done by by people but at the same time
other jobs are getting created and that
concept of independent living all of the
connected home stuff again monitoring
all of those things I think become very
important to to folks who you know who
are relying on others to make sure that
they're safe safe at home so all of this
translates for consumers into a much
much better lifestyle in a lot of ways
if you are able to solve some of the
problems that Mark described and I think
for most people the - that for most
consumers the two that are most obvious
are the issues of security cyber
security you do not want your household
hacked much less you know your entire
power grid and the issue which is
receiving a lot of attention these days
in Washington which is the issue of
privacy right now what we have is a huge
patchwork of privacy legislation coming
from the states primarily to some
exchange from Europe all of which is
defining things differently and making
it very difficult for both businesses
and consumers to have any idea of what
their rights are what their
responsibilities are what needs to be
done so happy to talk about that some
morris as we go on so I could sit up
here by myself all day and entrap these
kind folks and have a great conversation
but I wanted to take a pause and see if
there was anyone who had any questions
based on what we've covered so far sure
and if you could just quickly identify
we're taping it so if you could identify
yourself and sure Andy Schwartzman
Benton foundation I find it I want to
ask if you about the race to 5g and if
there is really a race to 5g or what are
we racing for it seems to be a consensus
that we really don't know what the use
case is for 5g yet we think it's gonna
we video will obviously be involved but
you know we think it may be enterprise
it may provide a competition for for a
fixed wireless competition for for Wired
connectivity it may help in in rural
places it obviously will help in
telemedicine but we don't know exactly
how and we don't know exactly what
technology is going to be involved so is
this as a matter of build it and they
will come or or is this something where
maybe we might be better off letting the
technology develop before we rush into
deploying what may be the wrong thing or
the wrong standard just having lived
through multiple iterations of the
evolution of wireless certainly people
would dispute that they quote rolled out
the wrong thing here I'm thinking of a
particular company that was enamored
with I think it was TDM a back in the
day
didn't really go anywhere kind of a
misstep might have blown a couple
million bucks or a couple hundred what I
have seen the industry do because it is
so competitive at such a deep level
going to even the personal relationship
some of these executives have these of
each other I feel that the technology
can be deployed and if there's a mistake
you can easily overcome it when I say
easily I don't mean for free or very
very quickly but it's certainly
something that you can overcome and
quote recover from but on the other hand
it seems to me that we are talking about
a lot of use cases that are actually
happening now and IOT being one of them
IOT of course doesn't need 5g to be a
success but all of the extension ideas
about how to use IOT beyond the obvious
seem to be definitely a use case that's
not in the future but it's happening now
and then as far as the and I'm gonna let
the the experts here jump in but I I
didn't want to leave the impression that
this quote race to 5g versus China is
really nothing more than a slogan having
looked at the way in which China has
deployed in pursuit it's one belt one
Road initiative and the way in which
they are putting resources in their
economy behind several key areas
including tech and telecom as a way to
position the country as the global
leader across a number of ways I do not
think it is a light matter I don't think
it's a trivial matter and I don't think
it's a made-up issue I think it's very
very real whether or not we are going to
have the ever-expanding economy like
we've experienced over the last hundred
years or whether that you know all of
the benefits that come from that go to
some other country and I think that's
what in part the race is about that I
could be wrong Annamarie well I guess
the way I look at it is if you go back
to pre iPhone no.1 I mean the internet
the way we know it today essentially we
can with the iPhone and no one would
have predicted before that most of the
uses that we have today so at some point
you've got to have the
technology out there for the innovators
to actually play with and work with and
and come up you know with the solutions
I think that that's the answer you it
can't say describe to me in great detail
the actual technology that we'll be
using this infrastructure and then I'll
build it because you know it's like any
entrepreneur enosis people don't know
what they want until you know some
entrepreneur shows it to them and so you
you you you have to take a little bit of
a leap of faith in this area and for the
infrastructure companies who are
involved in this it's a huge leap of
faith and this is expensive stuff and
there is a distinct possibility they'll
put all this investment in there and and
the customers won't come the Field of
Dreams will collapse but I do think you
know the experience from a4g shows that
that kind of leap in the dark it can be
very successful the u.s. took the lead
in that area we were successful in
having huge spillover effects with for
the rest of the economy including the
tech giants who are in such trouble
these days but that kind of
forward-looking innovation in a brand
new technology with a lot of promise is
the kind of stuff that I think we would
be doing and likely to be doing
regardless of competition with China III
don't think this is something we're
being pushed into because of external
forces telling us that we have to go
there otherwise we'll be left behind and
in some race I think it's an internally
generated opportunity that the
technology is presenting to us and you
really don't have much of a choice but
to go for it the other and all this will
be the last comment some of the
innovations a perma that you were
talking about in with respect to
spectrum I mean the idea that you could
figure out a way to bend a radio wave
around the corner of a building was
laughable ten years ago and yet right
now that's what people actually are
trying to figure out how to do in
millimeter wave to make it even more
useful so the the sorts of things that
are going on that I think engineers get
really really really excited about are
not necessarily going to be the customer
facing things that we as non engineers
are like oh my god that is so cool
although I
you think bending radio waves is sort of
you know I generally think oh this they
don't normally go like that anyway I was
an English major little things really
really impressed me in this space but I
just think that there is a lot going on
here that again is not necessarily
terribly exciting to most of us but is
it is critical another I think space
that would presumably be affected a lot
and I just don't hear a lot I don't hear
much coming from Wall Street about it is
the insurance industry you know think
about big data combines with and I don't
let's not go in a scary place like
health healthcare just you know insuring
your home and if you have a smart
connect at home are there ways to price
things a little bit differently than the
way they used to be and that that's just
one of the the very preliminary
questions so I I tend to be a not an
advocate here but I just have spent so
much time in the wireless space and it
has always held so much promise and I
think there's nothing about 5g that that
would cause us to think that it won't
continue to deliver other questions yes
oh wait you have to wait so that we can
record your lovely voice and if you
could identify yourself sure hi I'm
ashamed to zuv the American Enterprise
Institute so
Annamarie and mark you both mentioned
security so where is the right place to
work through these security issues in
the network stack is it through the
multi-stakeholder process is the
government have a role here that seems
to be the big challenge and with the
opening cartoon about the you know the
Huawei ring obviously this is layers of
interest to it so so I'm a fan of
Schneider's approach which is this is an
area where you do need some government
role the the externalities are too great
the chances of you not making an
investment that would cause problems for
other people and the misalignment the
financial incentives suggests that if he
if you don't have some external force
putting some pressure on companies to
make adequate investments it just won't
be done so I do think you need that kind
of regulatory oversight the chances of
getting that
the current environment you know or I'm
a little skeptical but I do think it's a
necessity and and if you don't get it
there it'll be serious problems that
could set back the industry for years
and then maybe maybe then but maybe not
you'll move ahead with the regulatory
approach and that's that's really very
different from the Chinese threat I mean
I know we describe it as the you know
China might be snooping on us but but
this is much more just of the
vulnerabilities made possible by by the
software developers and the others who
make the products that will ride on top
of 5g that they don't put the adequate
security in there and and and that even
if you got rid of all of Huawei's
products and didn't ever use ZTE ever
again in your entire life and those
companies vanished from the face of the
earth we would still have those those
problems so it's a really a separate
problem and one that should be dealt
with the proactive government role and I
think I mean as as has been the case for
decades now the networks play a huge
role and have played a huge role in
security and certainly in the last
couple of decades is you know PCs and
and mobile devices have proliferated the
responsibility to some extent has
extended to individuals particularly
when we see how much damage can be done
you know witness target and any number
of others where one small supplier for
example can cause havoc for a huge
corporation and millions of users so
really I at all levels it's gotta be
done and there's got to be and and folks
have to be accountable for that
Howard was cooking with communications
daily you haven't talked much about I
mean I think most of the focus is more
or less but unlicensed spectrum and 5g
but I wanted to ask you about how
licensed spectrum will sort of interplay
with wireless spectrum and also what's
the outlook for getting some big bigger
channels for example in the unlicensed
space there's been a lot of focus on six
gigahertz but it seems like the that you
know that's also very crowded band so
the I'm not sure what what the outlook
is as far as how quickly that might be
available so that's the question or the
question so if you look at sort of the
December auction that's upcoming you do
have very large channels in that auction
we saw that in the 24 gigahertz auction
as well so in the millimeter wave
definitely there are larger channels
that are coming online and in terms of
sort of more unlicensed spectrum coming
online I think that is an area that is
actively being explored in a lot of
bands and not just sort of the CB RS
that everyone sort of talks about in the
5.9 gigahertz there's been a lot of
debate about whether you know you should
open up a bit of the band for Wi-Fi like
uses it is a very controversial issue
but one that we need to visit often
given the architecture of what 5g is
going to look like I just note on
spectrum I would agree that there is
this whole conversation about C band and
mid band I mean I think it is ironic
that two years ago we were talking about
2.5 is high band spectrum and it's now
fully in the mid band area but there is
this I would agree with I think you at
the point perm was making that the
millimeter wave spectrum might be
underappreciated here I mean I think
Verizon's purchased a straight path the
history book so they're going to show
that was a extremely wise strategic move
to outbid AT&T because if this works and
you know there's a lot of evidence about
the data it can carry or
traffic you can hold given the wideband
of channels they have I think they're in
a very envious spot for a future 5g
network and I in my world there's a lot
I'll sit down in a medium with the 5g or
excuse me with a hedge fund manager and
they'll tell me how Verizon is extremely
vulnerable in their spectrum position
how they need a lot of mid band and make
them feel like they're in a position of
extreme weakness you know I think
they'll certainly be interested in see
band if it becomes available but I don't
think they're anywhere nearly as
vulnerable as people might think
speaking of spectrum a different in a
discussion sorry John peacock Carnegie
Mellon University in a discussion of
competition I'm wondering about who the
competitors are I do know in a 4G world
I'm used to thinking about for cellular
operators and some smaller ones and to
tower companies and some smaller ones
are there going to be new kinds of
competitors in a 5g infrastructure world
I'll just take that I mean when you get
my primer we have a little cartoon in
there that shows that you know broadband
network is in extremely part of I mean
the long pole in this tent of 5g is the
fiber provider and so you have the wire
as I always come the wireless and
wireline catbacks dollars Barrett that
line is becoming a lot more blurred AT&T
no longer breaks out traditional
wireless capex spending Verizon going
forward will no longer and that's
because they're so interrelated so I
think fiber providers like that's it for
those of you who might knows AOL a
company that just was going to be taken
private there were 16 bids for Zao a lot
of private equity money is chasing this
space I would you know some of these
what we used to call our Lex rural local
exchange providers have been left for
dead names like CenturyLink which is the
largest fiber provider or used to be
part of sent about level 3 I think
that's going to be a really interesting
model because the fiber is the is the
kind of the the key ingredient and the
cook
you know you can't make cookies with
that eggs and I think of fiber is that
those eggs just to pick up on something
that I've heard certainly you and your
colleagues use Jen is this issue of the
DOJ review of the proposed Sprint
t-mobile Archer and this idea that
perhaps there can be a synthetic force
competitor created through sort of
cutting off some of the assets of the
combined company and kind of creating
this additional fourth competitor if the
existing go from four to three and what
what to me is fascinating about that
putting aside where DOJ lands is the
rumors about the sorts of partners that
are in discussions with some various
parties that appear to be in in front of
the DOJ partners like you know an Amazon
or Google these are our companies who
certainly have the money to get into the
spectrum business but probably are smart
enough to realize actually putting
sticks in the ground is a long hard
expensive slog to having access or being
able to have a service that you're you
know you might want to provide access to
consumers or bundle it into something
else you're doing but to me that is a
reality that highlights that this does
open up the possibility for different
and interesting kinds of competitors
maybe they're not going to be competing
the way traditional phone companies
looked and felt in the way they competed
but certainly would be in a position to
start nibbling at market share of not
only the operators but jumping the shark
and getting into completely different
parts of the industry seem to be
possible whether or not that's actually
going to happen I think remains to be
seen but it's a really an excellent
question the the other piece is how are
you defining competition if you look at
for example at capex among some of the
large providers it has been growing
phenomenally in the last few years as
they have taken over they have
essentially become CDNs they've bought
endless amounts of data senders put
fibre between them and they're sort of
integrating backward into the core
network perhaps ultimately so the way
the network is
configure and and it makes sense because
they have all that data that is being
transported so it really comes down to
kind of when do these guys want scale
where are they going to find it and
above all how long do their valuations
remain as astronomic as they are and the
phenomenal amounts of cash that are
sitting on their balance sheets that
enable them to fund you know to fund
back into into the network side and you
know I would be remiss if we didn't also
throw out names like legato is out there
trying to figure out a path to success
however they define success which is a
little unclear to me you've got rubato
which is out there you know unclear what
their path to success will be but you
you definitely have a lot of entities
out there that are not your traditional
network operators and providers who seem
to recognize there's some value here
with this thing called 5g and maybe they
haven't figured out exactly how they
want to plug into it but definitely seem
to be very interested and again rumor
mill you know if you look at who was
rumored to be talking to privada on
partnering on devices etc again not your
usual folks that you that you read about
being in this space so I remain hopeful
that in fact we will see different kinds
of competition and very different sorts
of companies quote-unquote getting into
the wireless game if you will
any other questions yes please and if
you wouldn't mind just introducing
yourself Aiden annecy I'm from the
Federal Communications Commission on
sort of picking back off of that um sort
of so when you talk about competition
just to kind of take it to a more kind
of macro scale here on international
commerce like what kind of like policy
or like trade agreement like policy
would help create a competitive
structure because you know when you talk
about you know when we roll out 4G it's
a base for that well when we rolled out
4G it was like the sort of the start of
like the internet of all things and you
have much much more entry and like with
5g like you're at a point now where it's
like all the companies and like US and
Europe have just such a massive like cow
little Endowment that like they're just
gonna be able to in wallet might seem
like good policy to them like what about
okay well what about like people and
like Guatemala or like all these
developing countries that are trying to
get you know they're sort of wire
industry kickstart like what what does
that mean for them and like or even just
here in the US you know sort of with all
these now you have all these companies
that have such a massive capital
endowment that they're gonna be able to
buy into 5g a lot easier like how would
it help sort of how would you structure
kind of a policy that would create a
equal competitive framework for that so
if I understand the question correctly
what does all of this mean in for
purposes of bringing wireless broadband
to either areas that don't currently
have it I think your example or have a
weak wired infrastructure so your
Guatemala example as a general matter
you know and and folks with economic
economic degrees after their name rather
than a law degree should step in here
because I'm about to skate out into
trying to pretend I'm an economist
however the the one of the interesting
developments around 5g is the drop in
the cost factor well you have to put up
a lot more sites you know pieces of
equipment they generally tend to be a
little bit less expensive than the
pieces of equipment you had a deploy in
Durban prior iterations so if the
ultimate cost factor is going down the
theory is that you then as a company
have the ability potentially to go out
into areas that will not necessarily
give you the ROI that Wall Street is
expecting you to get when you are
investing your cash but because the cost
has gone down perhaps you can go after
those those opportunities a little bit
more robustly and I certainly think here
in the u.s. the conversation around 5g
and a focus of the FCC has been how can
5g bring more wireless broadband to
areas of the country that either don't
have it or don't have a lot of
competition so I think there are a lot
of policies
in terms of USF reform the mobility fund
infrastructure sighting towers on you
name it I think all of that is actually
in play right now to bring this to areas
sooner and faster and in terms of
internationally John you know you you
might be able to speak to this there
have been some experiences and certainly
Mexico is one of them where the wired
infrastructure is either minimal or
non-existent but you can bring Wireless
there and that won't give you the fiber
connections that you're gonna need for
robust 5g experience but it certainly is
going to get you wireless access to the
Internet where you know if you waited
for the actual wired infrastructure to
reach some of these areas it just
wouldn't happen because it's too
expensive
but that that was you know generally my
sense do you guys have anything no I
think that's absolutely right especially
you touched on the mobility fund that's
been one of the cornerstones off the FCC
to push out wireless broadband to more
unserved and underserved areas currently
if you follow it's been in a bit of a
hiatus because of certain mapping and
coverage issues and exactly where those
unserved and underserved areas is so
it's kind of funny that in an area where
we're talking of big data and connect to
data we still struggle with thinking
about what is unserved and what is
unjust underserved and trying to figure
out exactly what those areas are that
most deserve public subsidy and I'm
sorry yes sir question that was or that
was raised about economic policies and
just as trying to connect a couple of
dots one of the things that has
consistently been talked about is all of
the activity that's going on in the
spectrum space if you just back it up
one layer the reason we're having this
discussion is because spectrum is a
vital necessary resource without that
spectrum you won't you'll get limited
supply and higher prices that's
something that is critically important
Jennifer also mentioned the idea that
you
I have companies like Verizon doing
fixed wireless invading the space of
other competitors as a public policy
matter you want to enable that not to
discourage it
you also have seen over the last year or
two discussions of the of removing
public barriers to entry that involve
the new technology of building micro
cells and the deployment of of those
cells on street lights and street
corners and towers and buildings all of
that will be necessary and then I think
I think we can't forget at the end of
the day Mark's caveat we don't really
know yet whether all of that's going to
play out in the form of somebody getting
a first mover advantage in our sort of
capitalist system unlike China we have a
lot of different players competing we
don't know if there's going to be one
dominant firm that's going to provide
the leadership and perhaps be able to
take advantage of a undue competitive
advantage so you've got to have a
backstop technology or a policy of of
competition policy through the FTC in
the DOJ just some thoughts thank you
alright any other questions no it is
11:20 I think we can talk further or we
can call it a day I can give you guys
back I'm let me put it this way I can
give you guys back 10 minutes of your
life because you're supposed to end
11:30 or we can continue talking
let me just one yes mark my comment I do
think it's important to shift the
discussion a little bit away from the
carriers and the broadband and the
infrastructure and and focus on what 5g
will do for the connected smart products
and devices that that really is the name
of the game people people won't buy 5g
unless they have something to use on it
it's a platform it's not an end in and
of itself and I do think it provides the
opportunity for these connected smart
devices to change the nature of the
products themselves and to change the
way companies
compete I mean you are going to have a
product that is not an isolated product
it's got a computer on board and they
can talk to other computers and that
really does change the way in which
companies will will be in this game for
one thing a company like John Deere will
not be in the tractor business and in
anymore it will be in the business of
providing agricultural systems and and
that kind of shift from individual
products to systems is going to happen
in the area after area after area it's
not just in the telecom section that we
need to be focused on these changes and
it's there that I think we have to be
most worried about the possibilities for
competition effects it might be damaging
because these systems are going to be
very large they're going to be very
complex and there will be scale effects
there will be barriers to entry and the
possibilities of concentration are
pretty real if you add to that
customization effects that will come
from all these product data that's being
thrown out and the possibility of being
able to say to people I know exactly how
you're using this part again I can build
it customized for you and nobody else
can do that because I've got the data
that also creates a barrier to entry and
their network effects do it as well big
companies with lots of customers have a
lot more products that they can analyze
to improve the products find out how
they're working how to make sure they
don't break down when they might break
down when repair and maintenance is do
all of those things become more and more
important as you get more and more
customers so once again big companies
have an advantage over small companies
that those effects on on market
structure I think have to be watched
they have to be waited for they have to
be anticipated and policymakers should
be thinking now how to get ahead of it
and to think of policies that might
mitigate those problems just add just a
last kind of tagline in line with marks
coming when I was walking around Mobile
World Congress floor in Barcelona and I
got the best explanation of 5g that I
could could get from like a RF engineer
that I just actually met while walking
the floor and his description I had to
write it down was that whereas every
other G the business case drove was
drove connective
5gu kind of flipped the script and it's
the connectivities gonna be so massive
that it's gonna drive multiple business
cases that we don't really even know
exists now I'm also kind of the 5g pixie
dust is everywhere
but when you think about it in that
respect and really echoing Marx comments
I think that kind of summarizes it and
going back to your original question
that's ye Team t-that's why Verizon
that's why t-mobile Sprint etc need to
make that investment because the
economic numbers for just America in
general are massively big but I think
also when you look at that
interconnectedness
that's why federal policy on privacy and
federal legislation sooner rather than
later is really critical because you're
going to need all of that data to be you
need the companies to yield to trust and
understand what their responsibilities
are you need consumers to be able to
understand that I need to figure out you
know who who owns what who is
responsible for that so I think we'd
have a really hard time if that doesn't
happen too quickly yeah and what we did
not talk about today is and which I
think could be the focus of our next
gathering is you take 5g in your overlay
ai and what does that look like and
usually those conversations are a little
scary so we'll leave that for a
different day but I would leave you with
this thought so there was a guy who
thought wow I think we're just gonna
work you know I can figure out a way
that we're gonna have mass produce
electric cars and I think that person
also decided there's got to be a way we
can go ahead and get to Mars which then
drove innovations in battery is driving
innovations in some of the spectrum
discussions and most recently he's
decided he wants to figure out a way to
get a chipset connecting your devices to
your brain it sounds funky it sounds
strange I think it sounds creepy the
point is that sort of focus on something
really creative and innovative is
obviously driven not just by things that
that
Oh wants to accomplish but it's also
driven I think in new small part by the
technical capabilities of today's modern
broadband infrastructure and that's
really exciting so we don't have a short
answer to exactly is you know what are
we racing towards and is this just
made-up speech but I do think there is
real excitement and 5g everyone you talk
to whether it's the engineer the
marketing folks the device people the
network folks they're just really
excited and I think they're excited by
the fact that they've got something
really cool here not really sure what
it's going to accomplish but it should
be really exciting so with that thank
you all very very much for joining us
thank you for the speakers and John any
other all right thanks
