Donald Trump’s determination to “win” the 5G internet race has sparked a series of disputes over telecoms spectrum allocation, with the likes of Facebook, Google, AT&T and National Public Radio at odds with one another.
The Federal Communications Commission has pushed forward with spectrum sales in the past few months as it rushes to fulfil the US president’s pledge to not let “any other country outcompete the US” in establishing superfast internet across the country.
But experts warn that the tangled mesh of competing corporate and government claims over the “Goldilocks” mid-part of the spectrum threatens to delay the rollout and leave the US trailing China.