Companies like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T are doing their best to claim top spots in the race to 5G wireless networks. One of the ways they plan on doing this is through mergers and acquisitions. Increasing competition is heavy as the younger generation moves away from traditional pay-TV services. The pay-TV industry is already on its way to lose another four percent of their subscribers, after losing over three percent in 2017. According to the Nielsen's Total Audience Reports, the younger generation spends less time watching TV now then they did four years ago.

They are opting for streaming services delivered over the internet with more flexible terms; even though fewer channels are being offered. A report by Axios provided a lot of the information used in this article.

Investment dollars need to be found

Cable, phone, and broadband carriers are now working in earnest to set up mobile services with a goal to attract and retain multi-products customers. Partnerships have been formed to accelerate the development of operating and software platforms. With the smartphone market predicted to reach 90 percent by the end of the year, mobile data traffic is expected to increase big time. That means new investments must be made to support the costly building of fiber networks required for 5G.

Telecoms are trying to bulk up their other businesses to increase their revenue dollars, as competing for advertisement dollars, increasing subscribers of the high-speed internet, or focusing on digital media.

The US needs work to take the lead

So far, telecoms have benefited with the Trump roll-back of regulations, namely net neutrality and privacy rules.

But they have a long way to go yet if they are to take the lead away from China and South Korea in the 5G arena. Legislators can help more by passing pending legislation like the Airwaves Act, continuing to work on regulatory reforms, and bring up-to-date infrastructure siting rules. The FCC is progressing in modernizing the wireless infrastructure rules and announced in March they intend to hold an auction November 14 of spectrum in the 28 GHz band, followed by an auction of spectrum in the 24 GHz band.

This will unlock previously underused high-band spectrum for the next-generation wireless broadband services, known as 5G.

FCC to make changes

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai announced that their June meeting will include removing regulatory barriers that have made it hard for companies to discontinue outdated, legacy services. Also, a vote will be taken on discontinuing the paying of the broadband tax by small, rural carriers. If passed their customers will see a reduction in their broadband service bill. The June meeting will tackle the outdated FCCs leased access rules that are out-of-date and the Internet Protocol Captioned Telephone Service (IP CTS).
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