President Donald Trump's national security team is looking at options to counter the threat of China spying on US phone calls that include the government building a super-fast 5G wireless network.
A senior administration official, confirming the gist of a report from Axios.com, said the option was being debated at a low level in the administration and was six to eight months away from being considered by the president himself.
"We want to build a network so the Chinese can't listen to your calls," the senior official told Reuters. "We have to have a secure network that doesn't allow bad actors to get in. We also have to ensure the Chinese don't take over the market and put every non-5G network out of business."
Major wireless carriers have spent billions of dollars buying spectrum to launch 5G networks, and it is unclear if the U.S. government would have enough spectrum to build its own 5G network.
