Spectrum 'Urban Crunch,' Zoning, Permitting Maze Seen as Big 5G Hurdles

Between now and the U.S. 5G future sit hurdles ranging from an "urban crunch" of spectrum availability to the morass of dealing with legions of local zoning and permitting steps, speakers said at an Axios event Wednesday. North America “started late” on 5G standardization, behind the Far East, but the country has reversed its position in the past two years and the first large-scale rollout likely will happen within the next 12 months in the U.S., said Ericsson North America CEO Niklas Heuveldop.

U.S. 5G priorities include dealing with the "urban crunch" of availability, closing the rural-urban divide and leading on 5G implementation internationally, said Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo. Gardner said the U.S. "fell behind" Japan in 3G, and making more spectrum available for 5G is vital, citing the Advancing Innovation and Reinvigorating Widespread Access to Viable Electromagnetic Spectrum Act he co-introduced with Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H. S-1682, by taking 10 percent of the proceeds raised from spectrum auctions for broadband deployments in unserved in underserved areas, tackles two of the three priorities, he said.

The U.S. also must lead on R&D, Gardner said, adding he supported more research funding for the National Institute of Standards and Technology for work on spectrum sharing. He dismissed the idea of a nationalized wireless network, saying the U.S. doesn't want to rely on a single system.

Policy and regulatory hurdles to 5G implementation include the need for a stable regulatory environment, predictability regarding future spectrum access, and changes in the nation's local zoning and permitting regime given that a company might have to go through dozens of steps for permitting sites in a major metropolitan area, said Heuveldop.

And 5G will affect other industries. “The intercontinental dream for gamers is 5G," since a broad connectivity network promising lower latency would allow for online gamers to easily play against one another globally, said Mike Rufail, CEO of e-sports company Envy Gaming. Fiber networks greatly reduced latency issues, but 5G "is going to take it to the next level," he said.

Serge Matta, president of GroundTruth, a mobile-based retail advertising platform, said 5G will let the company more closely track shoppers' footprints -- knowing not just that they are at the mall but what stores they are in or near, or what floor of a building they are on, which could lead to far more precise targeted advertising. He said his company doesn't tie its tracking data about shoppers to personally identifiable information such as their names and home addresses. He said increasing privacy concerns mean the U.S. is moving increasingly not toward opt-in consent models but "knowingly consenting," with clearer information about what happens when a user decides to share or not share personal information such as location services with an app. He said that model is at least a couple of years away.