Spectrum Expert Hatfield Worries About 5G Overhype; Verizon Not Seeing Unfounded Touting

"There are some pretty serious dangers in overhyping it," Hatfield said. He noted wireless networks are "inherently open to malicious and nonmalicious jamming, spoofing and sniffing attacks that reduce network resiliency." Hatfield said having a single standardized tech leads to economies of scale, but "dangers" are associated "with monocultures." He sees 5G overhyping affecting what research is done. He fears "premature allocation of spectrum" before "5G uses are really proven," as "4G can do a lot of this." CTIA didn't comment.

"Overhyping 5G is not victimless" and may lead to ill-informed investments, the engineer said. "We pay a price when we say 5G is so important, it will get around" environmental or historic site regulations, he added, citing "unnecessary removals or suspensions of environmental regulations" such cellsite streamlining. RF exposure limits are "a bit of an elephant in the room," Hatfield said. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai asked colleagues to approve keeping them in place (see 1908080061).

A Verizon lawyer agreed Hatfield's cautions are worthwhile. "We take security very seriously," said Senior Vice President-Public Policy and Strategic Alliances Donna Epps. Fifth-generation may carry more cyberthreats but it also offers better network security, she said, with better encryption. "The bad guys are going to be out there, gunning for this." The focus on the standard can seem to be overhyping since "we don’t really know all the use cases that are available," Epps said. The "point is well-taken, making sure you don’t misallocate resources." While "it can actually appear there is overhyping," in hindsight post-rollout, that won't seem true, Epps said. Verizon isn't saying 5G is the be-all and end-all, she said: "It's not the case that we are saying 5G to the exclusion of all other technologies."

Verizon plans to have mobile 5G in at least 30 cities this year as it also expands fixed 5G wireless, Epps responded to our question on when the technology might come to some of the bigger towns in the Aspen area and western Colorado. "We are going to focus first on densely populated areas" in downtowns and then suburbs. She cited use of millimeter-wave spectrum. "A lot of what will be informing the timing is how quickly can we go" with building fiber backhaul for 5G, which requires some local approvals, Epps said. "You’re really talking about construction projects, you’re digging up the ground, you’re laying the fiber." She likened it to a three-to-five-year construction project. Epps said Verizon has been deploying about 1,200 to 1,400 route miles of fiber monthly.

Measuring the number of gigabits or G's in standards may seem simpler than measuring the digital economy that was discussed on a panel earlier Monday (see 1908190038), but Clemson University economics professor Thomas Hazlett noted there's not complete agreement on 5G. "There are the G wars." And "all great spectator sports seem to have scoreboards that are easily understood," he said. "We have a 5G scoreboard. We want to move forward." The suggestion to wait to update spectrum allocations until "business models are developed" is "the wrong path," he said.

Cable, meanwhile, is "confident we can get" to wide deployment of 10G (see July 23 report), or 10 Gbps symmetrical broadband, said CableLabs Vice President-Technology Policy Rob Alderfer. He said 93 percent-plus of U.S. cable networks are gigabit-capable, "pretty significant progress" from a few years ago: It's "scalable to multi-gig and 10 gig." In the U.K., rhetoric around the importance of, and being a leader on, 5G is similar to the U.S., said BT Group Director-Regulatory Affairs Cathryn Ross: "We are among the leading countries" with the standard launched in some cities during 2019 in Britain, and more coming in the next year.

TPI Notebook

Since technology and especially AI may make more job types obsolete, it's worth thinking about policy in such a scenario, a TPI lunch audience was told Monday. Startup founder, virtual reality pioneer and current Microsoft Office of the Chief Technology Officer Prime Unifying Scientist Jaron Lanier said "we very much have a name for the thing that would replace people, and we call it artificial intelligence." He noted he wasn't speaking on the tech company's behalf and executives there could be "horrified" about his remarks. Though some want to tell those whose professions have been made outdated they're themselves becoming obsolete and need to be retrained, he said "that it’s a lie. In fact, we need them, we just don’t want to admit it." He discussed a future with "data as labor" and much collective bargaining, like with unions, but perhaps labor units of a different name. "Any future in which people are contributing to an AI algorithm" could mean "data comes from all of us, all of us collectively become laborers," Lanier said. The VR expert worries about a government-provided universal basic income, which some propose to address AI effects on employment. He said that would instead concentrate power in the state. Companies need worker buy-in for tech improvements, University of Southern California business/tech associate professor Pai-Ling Yin told an earlier panel (see page 2). Without this, innovation happens more slowly, she said. "Technology works with not only people but organizations and firms. So if it's not making sense to that firm" that seeks higher profit or its employees, she said of tech adoption, "it just won’t happen."

For the first year in recent times, neither the FCC nor the FTC had speakers at TPI. The FTC was scheduled to have sent a member from each political party. Flight problems derailed that, attendees said and an FTC spokesperson confirmed. As a result, Commissioners Noah Phillips and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter canceled their appearances for Monday, the agency's spokesperson said. The FCC declined to comment.