White House Pushes for National Mobilization on 5G Cellular Service

The year 2020 has been a rough one, that’s for darn sure, and the worst may be yet to come as the already-fraught presidential election looms over the horizon.

But, even amid the horror-show that this year has been at times, there have been a few consistently wacky punchlines to fall back on.  A good bit of this jovial humor has come at the expense of conspiracy theorists who’ve jumped that shark and provided us with unsolicited and salacious takes on some of the world’s most prevalent maladies.

One of the most ubiquitous factors in many of these fringe hypotheses has been the introduction of 5G cellular technology, which some theorists believe is all part of a plot by the “illuminati” to enslave all of mankind via the “new world order”.

Heck, some of these theories even purport that the 5G cell phone towers that have already been installed somehow “activated” the coronavirus pandemic.

Again, these are all just theories with no basis in accepted science, but at least they are absurd enough to be humorous.

Now, in the late stages of this godforsaken year, the 5G conspiracists will again be roused, however, as the Trump administration looks to make a major change to the way America utilizes the technology. 

White House chief of staff Mark Meadows is leaning on the Pentagon to move ahead with a plan to stand up a 5G wireless network, sources tell Axios, and the idea, despite opposition from key government and private-sector players, could well outlive the Trump administration.

Why it matters: The Department of Defense could lease out capacity to wireless carriers and other companies in need of the ubiquitous, high-speed connectivity that 5G technology promises. That prospect makes this the Trump administration’s most serious push toward a federally backed national 5G network since it first floated the idea in 2018.

What we’re hearing: Meadows has taken a strong recent interest in the idea and is behind the White House nudging the Pentagon to move it along, people familiar with the state of play said.

The push could bring high speed wireless to rural America, and has garnered bipartisan support.