A national 5G wireless network is not such a stupid idea

FOR more than three decades, telecoms policy, at least in rich countries, has been a one-way street: more deregulation and more privatisation in order to foster more competition. This direction was set by America in 1984, when it broke up AT&T, its telephone monopoly. So there was much surprise at a recent memo, written for the White House by an official at the National Security Council, which argued that the next generation of mobile network, “5G” for short, should be built and run by the American government.