In the final days of 2025, talk of a 6G race suddenly exploded after the White House issued a presidential memoranda on December 19 titled “Winning the 6G Race.” It immediately brought back memories of the 5G race, which faded into obscurity once 5G rolled out and failed to deliver on its promise. Here are my views on why the 6G race is also a sham.
What the Memoranda Actually Says
The memoranda lays out actions meant to secure United States leadership in 6G wireless technology. Its main directives include:
- Relocating federal users from 7.125 to 7.4 GHz to free up spectrum for commercial mobile networks
- Studying the feasibility of reallocating 2.69 to 2.9 GHz and 4.4 to 4.94 GHz for commercial use
- Pushing United States interests in international standards bodies and build partnerships to support American positions on the World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-27) spectrum agenda
For context, WRC-27 will identify spectrum for IMT, including potential 6G use, across several bands in different regions. The key bands for the Americas (Region 2) are 7125–8400 MHz and 14.8–15.35 GHz.
Looking Back at the 5G Race
The idea of a 6G race mirrors the rhetoric that surrounded 5G. At its peak, some described 5G not as competition but as a technological war. The 5G race narrative took off in 2018 as 5G moved from standards work to field trials. It quickly merged with the U.S.-China trade conflict, which brought restrictions on ZTE and Huawei and later placed Huawei on the Entity List.
Many prominent U.S. voices later argued that China won that contest. Eric Schmidt called U.S. performance “pathetic.” Jensen Huang said, “We lost the 5G wave.” Similar views came from Ajit Pai, William Barr, Hank Paulson, and analysts at several think tanks and consulting firms.
How People Tried to Measure the 5G Race
Several metrics were used to track progress in the supposed 5G race:
- Scale of deployment including number of base stations and percentage of coverage
- Network performance (speed, throughput)
- Spectrum availability
- Vendor market share
- Standard essential patents
- Investment levels and policy support
Various organizations even created composite indices to rank countries.
The Claimed Consequences of Losing
Those who believe the United States lost the 5G race often warn of two major risks:
- Economic risks
- Erosion of the telecom equipment sector
- Job losses
- Reduced ability to monetize new services
- Lost opportunities for new business models
- National security risks
- Dependence on foreign vendors
- A strategic rival controlling key technology
How China Framed 5G
Chinese officials rarely described 5G as a race. They treated it as national infrastructure that supports the digital economy. They emphasized global collaboration and rapid integration of 5G into real industries. The 14th Five Year Plan made 5G a strategic priority, and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology reinforced this through its Dual Gigabit plan. Chinese statements often emphasize independent innovation and technological self‑reliance, using patent volume as a marker of progress.
Is 5G or 6G Even a Race?
The short answer is no.
In brief, we can evaluate performance against the risks that race proponents claimed and decide whether any of those risks have anything to do with losing the 5G race. A deeper dive is needed, and I will save that for another post.
What we can say now is that operators remain disillusioned with 5G. Monetizing 5G services has proven difficult. Most operators deployed 5G radios in new spectrum but avoided standalone core networks, even though standalone cores represent a major architectural shift that supports many of the value added services 5G was supposed to deliver.
The broader 5G race narrative also revealed a clear divide. Vendors were loud while operators stayed quiet. Vendors stand to earn money. Operators have to spend it. United States operators spent record amounts on spectrum auctions. The C-band Auction 107 alone brought in $81.1 billion d for the U.S. Treasury. That level of spending will likely not happen again, as operators struggle with record debt to equity ratios. They continue to hold capex low as they work to reduce debt.
At the same time, 5G did not spark new applications or services much beyond what already existed. Media often credits LTE for enabling applications like Uber. In reality, many of the applications that dominate mobile traffic today, including YouTube, Facebook, and X/Twitter, were conceived during the 3G era and before 4G deployment.
This is why I think the economic contribution of 5G is overstated. We need more independent research to understand what 5G has actually delivered, without the hype or the self interest that often surrounds it. Private 5G networks have barely moved the needle in the United States, and in China many deployments rely on government subsidies. People often highlight carrier spending, jobs, and infrastructure investment, even though wireless jobs are shrinking for reasons that have nothing to do with losing the 5G race. The truth is that the return on investment has been slow to show up.
Final Thoughts
The whole idea of a 6G race comes from a zero sum mindset where one side wins only if another side loses. This is far from reality in this case. The only time that thinking might hold is if the global economic pie starts shrinking. If that happens, we have a far bigger issue than 6G or 10G.