Although it isn’t immediately clear which party was responsible, plans for a White House 5G demonstration presented by Ericsson and Sprint have officially been canceled as of June 14th. The demonstration was initially requested by the Office of Science and Technology Policy and was intended to be included as part of a meeting between the President and representatives of leading technology companies set to take place on June 22nd. That meeting is just one of several planned and is set to include 30 different companies, with the focus centered around drones, autonomous vehicles, and 5G wireless technologies. The FCC’s response to Ericsson’s request for Special Temporary Authority, which was effectively an application to make use of specific radio bands for the demonstration, stated that requested facilities were unable to be granted. Beyond that, the commission’s response simply said, “Withdrawn by applicant. Event was canceled.”
As to the demonstration itself, the two companies had planned to make use of the same frequency of the spectrum that Ericsson uses in Sweden, which is in the 14.5-15.35 GHz range. In effect, it was to be another stop on a continuing string of demonstrations that the company has been taking part in. One of the most recent of those demonstrations was one conducted in partnership with Verizon at the Indy 500 back in May. It was planned to involve the setting up a base station and mobile unit – operating at a distance ranging between around 50 to 328 feet (or 0.1 kilometers). While the meeting the demo was intended for did not start until June 22nd, Ericsson’s application requested permission for the company to begin setting up its demo on June 21st due to time constraints and the amount of work involved.
That extra day of preparation could easily have been the “requested facilities” that the FCC was unable to grant, since there may have been conflicts between White House activities and the space the demonstration was supposed to take place in. Ericsson may also have decided to cancel the presentation itself or the reason could have been more Sprint-related. More likely, the application was withdrawn when the required “facilities” to conduct the demo were denied. In any case, if none of the agencies or companies involved decide to come forward with a reason it will all be left to whatever speculation comes forward.