A state-run wireless network isn't a crazy idea, just ask Mexico
America's mobile infrastructure isn't good enough , at least according to former National Security Council officer Brigadier General Robert Spalding. Spalding's briefing document said the US was lagging behind China in wireless, and the solution was to build its own federal 5G network . The memo cost Spalding his job and sent parts of Washington DC into fits of apoplexy over the proposals. But this idea, deemed too radical to even discuss in the US, has actually been implemented in countries like Mexico, Rwanda and Australia. Spalding was advocating for an Open Access Wireless Network (OAWN), a country-wide cellular network that uses all the spectrum allocated for a band. Imagine that, instead of auctioning the 4G spectrum off to businesses, a nation builds and runs the infrastructure itself. Carriers would then buy capacity on the network to sell on as their own service, much like MVNOs (like Boost, Cricket and Project Fi) do on major US networks today. The only diff...