SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO AM) - Senator John Thune is again supporting a measure to pave the way for 5G mobile services.
Thune, who brought the bill forward last year, says politics got in the way and the bill never got farther than out of committee. He says there were a lot of year end "things that happened" and it got bogged down because Harry Reid held it up. Thune hopes this year the bill makes it to the floor, gets cleared and onto the President's desk and signed into law.
Thune says the technology required for the improved service is not quite up to speed. He says a lot of people in the tech community are pushing hard to 5G and they think it may happen by 2020. But in order for that to happen, Thune says, there has to be an adequate amount of spectrum. He says the bill codifies a commitment to make hundreds of megahertz of spectrum available for commercial use.
Thune says 5G is essential because of astonishingly rising demand.
He says currently there are 16 billion mobile devices worldwide now and by the year 2020 it is anticipate that there will be 200 billion devices. That all will need spectrum to operate on and the industry has to be prepared for that demand.
Thune says the bill is designed for the future and it should have broad support in Congress.
5G would increase speeds on mobile devices exponentially.