The Trump administration is feuding internally over the fate of airwaves critical to 5G networks, threatening to undermine the country's push to speed development of the super-fast wireless service and set the global standards around the technology. The clash pits Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai against Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine over whether the FCC’s efforts to free up more wireless spectrum for 5G will interfere with the government's use of nearby airwaves for weather forecasting and disaster relief. The interagency spat — which has been playing out for weeks behind the scenes and has recently begun to spill into the open — is the latest example of the tug of war over the invisible frequencies that power the nation's vast cell networks as well as a variety of public safety functions. The fight centers on airwaves in a specific band of spectrum, 24 GHz, which wireless carriers like AT&T and Verizon say are critical to deploying 5G because they have the capacity necessary to handle large amounts of data. The FCC plans to auction off the airwaves, which are largely unused, to wireless companies starting. But NASA and Commerce Department agencies like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which use nearby spectrum, fear the commercial 5G signals will interfere with their equipment, including weather observation satellites that gather data for forecasts and hurricane prediction.
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