page_title: Infrastructure policy of Donald Trump
section_title: High-speed Internet
hierarchical_section_title: Infrastructure policy of Donald Trump / Telecommunications / High-speed Internet
caption_attribution_description: English: Ajit Pai 2018 portrait
context_page_description: The infrastructure policy of Donald Trump includes ensuring U.S. energy independence, safeguarding the cybersecurity of the national power grid and other critical infrastructure, locking China out of the U.S. fifth-generation Internet market, and rolling back regulations to ease the process of planning and construction. While there have been no major infrastructure spending packages yet, some individual policies and projects have advanced piecemeal, especially in rural areas.
  Although there is recognition of the need to upgrade American infrastructure from both sides of the political aisle, as of April 2020, no major infrastructure bill has been passed due to disagreements over the details of such a spending package, namely, what to spend on, how much to spend, and how to pay for it. 'Infrastructure' is a rather broad term that means different things to different people.
context_section_description: After thinking for a year, President Donald Trump came out against having nationalized fifth-generation wireless internet infrastructure (5G). Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai said this sent an "important signal" to private companies that were investing billions of dollars in 5G. Pai also proposed spending $20.4 billion over a decade on rural broadband Internet services. Since November 2018, the FCC has been auctioning megahertz of spectrum to commercial wireless internet service providers offering 5G connectivity. FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said this was a step in the right direction and suggested that the Commission should not leave out "mid-band" spectrum lest the U.S. falls behind other countries. While previous generations of wireless internet offer the ability to send texts, static images, voice, and video through the Internet, 5G is considerably faster, allowing for high-quality video streaming, driverless cars, automated ports, remotely-controlled industrial robots, among other things. South Korea and the United States won the global 5G race when they began rolling out their services in early April 2019. Verizon Communications Inc, AT&T Corp, Sprint Corp, and T Mobile US Inc have already begun implementing 5G equipment in a number of American cities with plans to gradually expand service as 5G-compatible phones become more widely available. However, a combination of the high capital costs and high debt levels of leading U.S. telecommunications firm could result in a slow deployment of 5G networks, allowing subsidized Chinese equipment to penetrate markets in Asia and Europe.
  President Trump made the above announcement as he was considering banning Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei from the U.S. market. His administration has already been discouraging U.S. allies from purchasing Huawei's 5G technology out of security concerns. His administration believes that Huawei equipment puts intelligence sharing at risk. Since March 2018, the FCC has considered barring the use of federal funds to purchase equipment from companies that could pose a threat to national security. By law, companies operating on Chinese soil must "support, cooperate with and collaborate in national intelligence work."
  Founded in 1987, Huawei has since become a leading telecommunications firm, spending 14% of its revenue on research and development each year between 2016 and 2018. However, it has been mired in multiple controversies involving alleged intellectual property theft and espionage. After an 11-month investigation, the U.S. House Intelligence Committee found in 2012 that Huawei and ZTE, another Chinese firm, were threats to national security and recommended that U.S. companies refrain from doing business with them.  Under Donald Trump, the U.S. government has been trying to dissuade companies and other governments from around the world from using Huawei's technologies. In May 2019, the Trump administration added Huawei to the "entity list," which prevents it from acquiring technology from American firms without approval from the U.S. government. In October 2019, President Trump met with his Finnish counterpart, Sauli Niinisto, to discuss alternatives to 5G technology from Huawei. Finland's technology giant Nokia has developed some 5G capabilities of its own, and is one of Huawei's chief competitors, alongside Sweden's Ericsson. In December 2017, telecommunications firms from around the world agreed upon a set of global standards for 5G so that the technology can be easily implemented. The race was on for the various equipment manufacturers for global dominance, including Huawei and ZTE from China, Nokia, Ericsson, Qualcomm and Intel (both from the U.S.). 5G is a key part of the geopolitical fault lines created by Donald Trump's desire to "make America great again" and China's stated goal of becoming a global hegemony in artificial intelligence by 2030; this technological race is a part of the U.S.-China trade war.
  In June 2020, the Trump administration formally announced its opposition to the const
caption: FCC Chairman Ajit Pai.
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