The Trump Swamp Fights Itself Over Multi-Billion Dollar No-Bid Spectrum Grab
from the ouroboros-of-corruption dept
What does it look like when Trump’s swamp devours itself? Look no closer than a battle between Peter Thiel backed Rivada Networks and incumbent telecom giants AT&T and Verizon.
Last week, anonymous “senior administration officials” told CNN that Rivada was lining up to grab potentially tens of billions in extremely valuable middle band spectrum via a no bid contract. The sources told the outlet that Rivada, which is financially and politically backed by Trump/GOP allies like Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich, and Thiel, is pushing to bypass the normal FCC approval process to gain access to a massive windfall:
“informed sources tell CNN that the White House is unquestionably pressuring the Pentagon to approve what would likely be, in the words of one senior administration official, “the biggest handoff of economic power to a single entity in history,” and to do so without full examination of the impact on national security and without a competitive bidding process.”
To be clear, Rivada’s idea isn’t necessarily bad. The company wants to share middle-band spectrum currently held by the Department of Defense to offer a wholesale 5G network. Rivada lost a bid to build the country’s first emergency wireless network to AT&T, then sued (and lost). It has, quite correctly, been pointing out in recent years that the existing spectrum auction process tends to favor giants like AT&T and Verizon, something CEO Declan Ganley talked about again last week in a post at Morning Consult:
“The wireless industry is dominated by three big players. They buy up almost all the spectrum, they build networks where it suits them and don?t where it doesn?t. The FCC?s spectrum-auction process, which began as a great way to discover the highest and best use of a scarce resource, has been captured by the big carriers, and now serves merely to divide the spoils among the current winners. New entry into wireless via FCC auction is all but impossible.”
While this is sometimes correct (smaller players still do occasionally nab decent swaths of spectrum at auction), Rivada’s decision to use guys like Karl Rove to try and hotwire Trump corruption to directly obtain a massive spectrum handout is possibly worse than the corruption its complaining about. So on one side you’ve got Karl Rove, Peter Thiel, and Newt Gingrich, and on the other you’ve got telecom operators like AT&T and Verizon, and the lawmakers paid to love them. Companies that are no stranger to Trump handouts and are immensely politically powerful because they’re effectively bone grafted to our intelligence apparatus.
To scuttle Rivada’s chances, it appears that AT&T and Verizon lobbyists have been making the rounds among gullible and patriotic natsec lawmakers, trying to claim that Rivada’s DOD spectrum sharing plan is some type of some attempt to “nationalize” the nation’s 5G networks (damn socialists!). While some dusty corners of the Trump administration simply discussed the idea of a nationalized 5G network, it was never likely here in the U.S. And Rivada has argued (probably correctly) the term has been used by incumbent lobbyists to undermine the company’s efforts in DC and in the press:
“One challenge Rivada has faced in getting its story out is that the influence of big-money lobbyists is just the water in which Washingtonians swim. When 19 senators sign a letter against nationalization ? a measure opposed by multibillion-dollar multinationals ? in a matter of hours, and introduce legislation opposing it within days, that?s business as usual. No one can see the strings. But a story about a entrepreneurial company with a big idea is somehow easy to recast as something nefarious, given enough PR pros and money.”
The problem, again, is it’s hard to portray yourself as the good guy in this equation when Peter Thiel, Karl Rove and Newt Gingrich are your primary pitchman in a quest to bypass existing processes — and an open competitive bidding process (that while certainly skewed to favor deeper pockets, does include smaller competitors). It’s just one of many examples of the Trump swamp fighting itself, despite nobody in the equation genuinely holding the high moral ground.
Filed Under: 5g, donald trump, fcc, karl rove newt gingrich, lobbyists, nationalizing 5g, no bid contract, peter thiel, spectrum
Companies: at&t, rivada networks, verizon
Comments on “The Trump Swamp Fights Itself Over Multi-Billion Dollar No-Bid Spectrum Grab”
African Proverb
When elephants fight it is the grass that suffers.
Look there is a very easy solution to all of this:
The FCC can just make a charitable donation of that spectrum to me (I’m sure they will eagerly say that need the tax break*).
It’s also fairly reasonable to assume that I wont actually do anything with said spectrum**. Everyone should be happy then. Encumberants are not hoarding this block of spectrum (because I am), and nothing actually gets done (which, as I understand it, is the main MO of telco companies).
(* At first this might sound like a really really dumb argument, but consider everything that’s happened in the last four years, I think it’s actually only a mildly stupid argument.)
(** For better or worse I have no where near the capital to do anything with the spectrum even if I wanted to.)
(/s, TBH I think spectrum would probably be a huge pain in the ass. I haven’t actually looked it up, but there’s probably some sort of "property tax"? Although actually having spectrum, might want to consider a better protocol that 5G. I’ve heard it isn’t quite as good, especially in the security arena as it could be.)
Re: Re:
No, their goal is to get paid for nothing to get done.
At least Trump got his aquatic engineering right.
You don’t drain a swamp from the high ground. To drain a swamp, you need to get as low as it gets.
Re: At least Trump got his aquatic engineering right.
…and then dig even deeper.
It’s only because the more corrupt hold sway with the less corrupt. Trump is just the latest example of one who can fool some of the people all of the time. Also an example of why it’s important to vote. There’s nothing wrong with this country that majority rule won’t remedy.
Re: Re:
How does majority rule remedy minority disenfranchisement?
Re: Re: Re:
By setting up a framework that protects the rights of the minority.
You cannot, at the highest level of democratic rule, allow a minority to dictate the overall structure of government because how can you decide which minority gets to make that choice? Instead, we, as a majority, purposefully limit the majority in order to prevent disenfranchisement.
It’s not ideal, but it’s the only possible way to do it.
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Fancy That
We can stop reading right there.
Re: Fancy That
Unless we want to keep track of whether it’s yet another new corruption for which the regular whistleblower channels have been poisoned or one of the hundreds we already knew about.
Re: Re: Fancy That
As far as I can tell, Koby is not a believer of rational thinking, only pretending to engage in it when it makes it’s drivel look better.
Which is kind of ironic, since cleverly made fully rational arguments can be a very good tool of deception… but you have to actually believe in rational thinking to make full use of them.
Re: Fancy That
Let me guess – if they talked to Fox about some secret Facebook plan you’d be all over it, but because they spoke to CNN about something then it’s fake news?
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Re: Re: Fancy That
Update: Miles Taylor outed himself as the "senior" administration official behind the anonymous 2018 NYT op ed article. In actuality, he was a chief of staff, under the dept of homeland security, with no access to President Trump. The junior official later resigned from the post, worked for CNNLOL, and lied about his involvement with the op ed in later interviews.
Re: Fancy That
There are still "senior administration officials" who talk to the fake news media?
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I h
"Karl Rove, Peter Thiel, and Newt Gingrich"
AKA The Evil Marx Brothers
Draining the swamp by pumping swampy water into new places and transforming them into swamp that the American people will have to endure for decades to come with little chance of undoing short of hardcore socialism.
Security.
The greatest trick about using wireless security, esp with digital, tends to be to Bury it in LOTS of use.
Making it military only? Nah! bury it in tons of other communications. Not restricting it makes for Tons of use. And in the background is the digital military.
Its like the idea of using the post office to send Diamonds. The odds of finding them to steal isnt very good.
Whats funny tho, is 5G. So you are setting up the system 5G for the military. But what about other countries? They use those bands for things also. This would only reside in the USA and be very convoluted in other countries.