[Sociotechnical review] 5G internet: automated data and public access
Introduction: investigating authoritarian and democratic tools in 5G technologies
Media stories and telecommunications companies in 2019 are painting the next generation of internet connectivity — the “fifth generation, or “5G” — as the next industrial revolution. 5G internet is expected to bring nearly real-time speeds to telecommunications, and is often referenced as the essential technological next-step in enabling the Internet of Things (IoT) and “smart” urban infrastructure. In addition, the many new “smart” devices which will accompany 5G are expected to produce and synthesize massive amounts of data at levels of granularity unseen in prior generations of internet connectivity. There is no shortage of sensational articles making claims about the 5G revolution, yet at present, 5G is largely in its preliminary testing stages. This research paper investigates existing 5G network infrastructures in order to analyze the implications for human socio-technical organization belied by a 5G internet framework.
Technology has a dynamic relationship with human thought and action. In the following literature review section, I provide a research background from fields of anthropology, and socio-technical studies which substantiates this relationship between infrastructural technologies and human cognition. In order to further understand the implications of 5G internet connectivity, I draw on a list of national economic analyses, technical journals and books, and media articles which make empirical claims on forms of future human organization under a 5G internet framework. Finally, I look at 5G network whitepapers and test results from telecommunication companies in order to assess the realities of existing 5G networks.
Currently, 5G internet is primarily still in its testing phases, and is not yet widely available on a commercial scale, claims for the 5G internet revolution should be reviewed with a healthy dose of skepticism. However, precisely because 5G internet is in its earliest phases of development, existing 5G frameworks should be evaluated for their ideological goals as well as their current tangible outcomes. At the time of this paper’s research, 5G internet is the focus of a modern technological race to international internet supremacy. Because 5G internet is gripping the attention of international superpowers, giant telecommunication corporations and city-planners alike, 5G internet deserves theoretical attention beginning at its earliest phases of implementation.
This research paper identifies observable paradigmatic shifts in human organization, and links them to the socio-technical changes brought by new technological frameworks. Specifically, 5G internet technologies aim to create webs of “smart” technologies that will automate many of the quantitative tasks associated with infrastructure administration and human movement through urban infrastructures. This report suggests that this automation of quantitative tasks is construed by various interested actors to lead to an improvement in the qualitative human experience of these infrastructural technologies. This report investigates these claims, and ultimately concludes that — while 5G technologies may improve qualitative human experiences of urban infrastructure — 5G technologies simultaneously enable both authoritarian and democratic forms of state administration. Moving forward, this report suggests that public access to granular 5G data will be a strong metric of analysis in determining whether 5G infrastructures enable authoritarian or democratic organization.
Literature review
This paper leans on a breadth of research to provide a socio-technical analysis of 5G internet in its early phases. First, we examine some of the unique materialities brought by the establishment of widespread 5G internet infrastructures. Next, we inspect the press releases of some of the primary corporate and national actors associated with the “race to 5G” in order to analyze explicit and implicit corporate and national goals in the modern tech revolution. Finally we synthesize a large body of social science research which provides us with a theoretical lens to investigate the encoded social frameworks of 5G technologies moving forward. Together, these three distinct bodies of work provide a lens through which this paper evaluates 5G technologies.
Driving this paper’s analysis of 5G technologies, we draw on Çalışkan and Callon’s theories of economization (Çalışkan & Callon, 2009 & 2010). Çalışkan and Callon’s two-part series of papers on “economization” aim to unite formalist and substantivist economic thought by shifting the focus of economic research from economies and markets to economization and marketization. Where formalist conceptions of economies signify objects which can be neatly quantified, economization refer to the various processes of quantifying and qualifying economic realms. Thus, Çalışkan and Callon take a multiple-actor approach to their exploration of economies, signifying the complexities of disparate human actions within global markets. If formalist economics highlights individual utility and substantivist economics foregrounds societal quality, then the concept of marketization from Çalışkan and Callon provides this research paper with an appropriate tool of measurement to evaluate both quantitative and qualitative concerns within 5G technologies.
Çalışkan and Callon’s multiple-actor-based theories of economization and marketization rely on prior theoretical work by Callon on socio-technical agencements (STAs). As denoted by the name, viewing economies as socio-technical agencements broadens the concept of human agency to account for both individual and organizational actions. Thus, STAs “renew the analysis of the power struggles at the heart of any market” in their ability to both quantify and qualify the concerns of various actors within the same market-based analysis (Çalışkan and Callon, Economization, part 2, pp.2). Çalışkan and Callon identify three main actors in processes of economization, “(1) the theories of the economy; (2) the institutional and technical arrangements that enhance the capacities of human agents for action and cognition; [and] (3) the things which are being valued whose materiality influences the modes of valuation that are possible and their outcomes” (Çalışkan and Callon, 2010, p.3). This research report addresses this list of three primary actors in the reverse order — first providing an analysis of the materialities of 5G technologies, next presenting a brief description of tensions between various economic institutions and national actors surrounding 5G infrastructures in the US and China, and finally evaluating how 5G internet technologies influence theories of the economy. In total, these three sections present a socio-technical analysis of 5G internet technologies through the theoretical lens of economization.
In order to evaluate 5G technology frameworks for their socio-political implications, this research report draws on a set of technical standards documents, whitepapers, corporate technology demonstrations and test reviews from telecommunications organizations which describe the infrastructural demands of 5G frameworks and usage specifications of 5G internet technologies. Next-generation technology reports from business consulting companies, state and suprastate organizations illuminate the anticipated infrastructural changes brought by 5G internet, along with some of the business and state motivations behind establishing 5G internet. First addressing the material infrastructural demands of 5G internet, this report looks to 5G internet reviews and whitepapers from technology publications and telecommunication corporations.
Specifically, the United Nations agency which advises international telecommunications standards — the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) — provides an overview of 5G technologies, and some key economic challenges associated with the rollout of 5G internet in their document titled “Setting the Scene for 5G: Opportunities & Challenges.” Another document from the ITU titled “IMT Vision – Framework and overall objectives of the future development of IMT for 2020 and beyond” addresses goals for a “networked society,” and provides insight to state-concerns under a 5G internet paradigm. Rodriguez’s book “Fundamentals of 5g mobile networks” outlines some of the challenges of 5G internet technologies, and provides a detailed description of the necessary infrastructures for 5G internet. ZDNet’s review papers “What is 5G? All you need to know about the next generation of wireless technology,” and “5G, a transformation in progress” help fill in gaps in these descriptions with an easy overview of the 5G technological needs and goals. Providing a window into the corporate anticipations of a 5G world, this report also draws from a video recording of Verizon’s 5G demo at the 2019 Consumer Electronics Show.
Next, in order to substantiate the topical nature of 5G internet as an ideological battlefront for international superpowers, this report draws on national security reports from the White House, and an analysis of Chinese 5G internet by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. of the primary national actors associated with the “race to 5G” in order to analyze explicit and implicit national goals in the modern tech revolution. In addition to these citations from American national institutions, this work cites news stories from the Wall Street Journal to evaluate some of the economic and political rhetoric employed in popular descriptions of the “race to 5G”. Together, these resources demonstrate a tense environment around the “race to 5G,” indicating the United States’ fear that China’s nationalized capitalist economy will achieve 5G before America’s fragmented market-based telecommunications companies.
Finally, this report provides a deep background of socio-technical theory to provide a lens through which we can analyze the materialities and economic institutions comprising the push toward 5G internet. Though not directly quoted in this paper, the concept of actor-network theory (ANT) originated by Callon, Latour and Law lends to this paper an analytical framework for the multiple subjectivities found within socio-technical fields of research. Actor-network theory bestows agency to all “actors” — both animate and inanimate — located within a socio-technical network. Viewing networks as such acknowledges the subjective normativities exerted by both humans and nonhuman actors within the network of focus. Callon, Latour and Law’s actor-network theory provides a theoretical basis for numerous academic reports that span fields of socio-technical studies, anthropology and urban studies, and investigate the inherently political nature of technologies and infrastructures. Among some of these deeper investigations of actor-network theory and the socio-political nature of infrastructures are works by Akrich, Mumford, and Winner. “The De-Scription of Technical Objects” by Akrich details how technologies are bestowed with “scripts” which reproduce or encourage specific social behaviors amongst their users. Akrich uses the terms prescription and de-scription to elaborate the processes whereby technologies are prescribed by engineers and designers and subsequently de-scribed by users who repurpose the technologies for uses beyond their original intended functionalities.
Further articulating the idea that technologies facilitate political constituency within societies and spaces, Mumford’s “Authoritarian and Democratic Technics” assesses the socio-political aspects of technologies based on the degree to which they allow for authoritarian or democratic human action. According to Mumford, authoritarian technics attempt to centralize power and decision making abilities, where democratic technics trend toward decentralization within human systems. Winner’s essay “Do Artifacts Have Politics?” complicates Mumford’s thesis with an argument that the political qualities within technical systems must be evaluated in their intended contexts. These socio-technical studies lay the analytical groundwork for the discussion of 5G internet technologies that follows.
Works by Deleuze and Guattari, and Thatcher, O’Sullivan and Mahmoudi provide a theoretical background which helps us understand the politically-motivated act of quantification. In “Nomadology: The War Machine” Deleuze and Guattari show that the naturally weak state mobilizes the nomadic “war machine” of disparate human productivity through the deployment of quantitative “royal sciences”. These royal sciences force the original “man of war” into a limited range of action. In relation to this paper’s discussion on 5G technologies, Deleuze and Guattari help explain how the sovereign state internalizes the area that it is able to quantify. The paper by Thatcher (et al.) describes what they term as “data colonialism,” where individuals are commodified by the automated quantification of their movement through and consumption of technological systems. These works help illustrate the implicit political act of automating massive amounts of granular data through 5G infrastructures.
5G infrastructure materialities — automated networks of “smart” devices
5G means faster internet connectivity — but what does that actually imply for infrastructures on the ground? Before we can embark on a discussion of the institutional backgrounds of a 5G internet framework, it is essential to first understand the material infrastructural demands of 5G internet. In this section, we review some of the unique infrastructural materialities necessitated by 5G internet, and examine how they enable new use-cases for internet technologies. This research report emphasizes three primary aspects of 5G technologies for this discussion: the new millimeter wave technologies and “small cell” base stations for millimeter wave mobile networks, the Internet of Things (IoT) and its enabling of “smart” systems and intercommunicating devices, and finally the automation of massive amounts of granular data through interconnected “smart” infrastructures. Together, these new functionalities of 5G internet automate the quantitative tasks of infrastructural administration. Telecommunications corporations and national actors suggest that this automation of quantitative powers will lead to an improvement in the qualitative human experience of urban infrastructures. In the following section, we describe key materialities of 5G technologies, and briefly investigate some of the vested interests of the different actors promoting 5G technologies.
Millimeter waves, small cell base stations and sub-1ms latency:
If there is one feature that is most important in characterizing the way 5G fundamentally reshapes the way we conceive of telecommunications infrastructure — specifically with regard to mobile internet connectivity — it is to be found in 5G’s “millimeter wave” (mmWave) technology. Faster internet must be achieved before a ‘fifth-generation’ can truly be realized, and mmWave technology is what makes this possible. All wireless internet connectivity is enabled through radio frequencies, and while part of the 5G internet revolution utilizes existing mobile frequencies in the mid-range (1-6GHz spectrum), this paper investigates the new high-frequencies explored by 5G internet (>24GHz spectrum). High-frequency mobile connectivity is enabled through millimeter wave (mmWave) technology which opens up the underutilized >24GHz radio frequencies to commercial mobile traffic . This opening of new radio frequencies increases internet speeds exponentially. Notably, 5G internet is defined by its achievement of “sub-1ms latency and >1 Gbps downlink speed,” which is said to be the final step necessary to achieving real-time communication of smart devices on the Internet of Things (Fulton).
However, mmWaves present new physical challenges for mobile infrastructure. Specifically, mmWaves have trouble passing through solid physical objects like buildings and other physical terrain. Where 3G and 4G mobile cellular connectivity is made possible by large base stations spaced out by distances of a few square kilometers, 5G mmWave connectivity is only possible at short ranges (Rodriguez, p.70). In other words, mmWave technology is best suited to hyper-localized “hot-spot” areas. Thus mmWave technology necessitates “small cell” base stations placed much closer together than preceding generations of internet connectivity. Most obviously, small cell base stations are best suited to densely populated urban areas, where it is more cost-effective for telecommunications corporations to invest in the vast infrastructural project of establishing 5G base stations every few hundred square meters. ZDNet’s article “What is 5G? All you need to know about the next generation of wireless technology” describes this high-density of small cell base stations as a “collective bargain between the telecommunications industry and society” saying that, essentially, small cell stations “must co-exist with the environment” (Fulton).
In 2019, 5G internet provision is still in its early demo phases. Already, however, a map from howtogeek.com shows that commercial 5G tests in the United States have largely been centered around dense urban areas (Heinzman). PCMag notes that 5G rollouts in the United States will reach rural areas more slowly than urban areas, and when they do, they are more likely to utilize mid-range mobile frequencies rather than employing the small cell stations better suited to densely populated areas (Segan). Differences in form-factor of 5G connectivity may accentuate an urban/rural divide in how people experience their internet connection (International Telecommunication Union). Specifically, 5G internet’s utilization of mmWave technology creates channels for massive amounts of device connections, which could lead to “smart cities”. In summary, mmWave technology necessitates a restructuring of internet “base station” infrastructures, and enables real-time communication between numerous “smart” devices. In the next subsection, we will explore the “Internet of Things”, and some of the associated implications generated by these multiple device connections.
The Internet of Things, massive data generation and “smart” infrastructures:
Perhaps one of the most alluring applications of 5G internet and its sub-1ms latency speeds is 5G’s enabling of machine-to-machine (M2M) communication through the “Internet of Things” (IoT). IoT technologies refer to the multiple device connections enabled by 5G internet. As discussed in the last subsection, 5G internet’s mmWave technology enables super-high speeds of information transmission reaching speeds up to sub-1ms latency. Because mmWaves open up entirely new commercial channels of mobile connectivity, 5G internet generates the connective capacity for networks of “smart” devices to communicate between, and learn from each other. In his book “The Internet of Things” Greengard notes that “the Internet of Things will revolutionize both developing and developed nations and introduce a tidal wave of commercial and consumer applications — from smarter utility grids and smart cars to radically different health care and manufacturing systems.” (Greengard, p.172).
The narrative surrounding IoT technologies is that they automate the quantitative tasks of infrastructure administration, thus leading to an increased emphasis on qualitative human experiences within technological systems. For example, at the 2019 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) Verizon’s CEO Hans Vestberg demoed some of the commercial applications for IoT technologies enabled by 5G. Vestburg noted that 5G can connect up to 1,000,000 devices in a square kilometer, where 4G was only able to connect roughly 100,000 devices in the same area. Emphasizing how this jump in connectivity changes technological infrastructures, he welcomed to the stage Mariah Scott, the President of a commercial drone company called Skyward. Scott explains how intelligent commercial drone fleets harness IoT capabilities to revolutionize human experiences. Combined with machine learning softwares, commercial drones can be programmed to provide automated data for smart city infrastructure, monitoring “for damage assessment after a fire, for traffic flow analysis, for people flow analysis, and for speed tracking and visualizing data trends” (Scott & Vestberg, “CES 2019 Verizon Corporate Keynote”).
Beyond simple drone services, 5G and IoT technologies enable entire smart city systems for the automatic monitoring of human movement within urban infrastructures. A report by Intel and Juniper shows that “smart infrastructure” will save the average citizen 125 hours of time per year, primarily in areas of “mobility” and “public safety” (Juniper Research, & Intel Newsroom, p.4). 5G internet and its IoT technologies create a technological framework that will allow a hyper-granular level of urban monitoring, and an automation of data analysis and feedback systems that can respond to local needs in real-time. Research by the International Data Corporation cited in a report by TechRepublic that shows IoT spending has already reached $80 million worldwide, and that "the two largest use cases ... are intelligent traffic and transit and fixed visual surveillance, followed by smart outdoor lighting and environmental monitoring" (TechRepublic, p.6).
If networked smart devices generate massive amounts data about our socio-technical infrastructures in real-time, then it is important to understand who has viewing access into this data. In an interview with TechRepublic, Theo Blackwell — the chief digital officer of London — explains the tricky question of making data from smart city infrastructures open or closed to the public. On the one hand, public data sharing encourages private innovation by startup companies, and improves “the digital capability of our public services” (Maddox). On the other hand, the granular level of real-time data generated by smart infrastructures is potentially highly sensitive, and the millions of 5G devices connected on the IoT may pose security issues that are still not fully understood. Thus, Blackwell notes, “appropriate safeguards around privacy and respect for personal data” are absolutely essential before opening up this data to public entities (Maddox). Blackwell’s statement reflects a tension within the automated quantitative abilities of “smart” IoT infrastructures: specifically, between security and innovation. The final substantive section of this report considers some of the political implications regarding the ownership of the granular data produced by networks of 5G internet technologies.
The “race to 5G” — economic tensions between national actors:
5G internet is expected to bring huge changes to technology and internet response time, enabling “the Internet of Things” (Rodriguez). In the preceding section, we reviewed how the key materialities of 5G technologies — mmWaves, “small cell” base stations, and “smart” urban infrastructures — highlight a tension between security and innovation via the question of public access to 5G data. Beyond these questions of data privacy, we showed how constructing networks of densely connected small-cell base stations requires cost-heavy infrastructure construction projects. Together, these two aspects of 5G materialities pose significant implications for economic organization and the state administration of infrastructure and data. This problematization of 5G infrastructures leads us into the current section of this report, which discusses some of the international tensions within the technological “race to 5G”.
Recent media reports highlight the U.S. and China as the two primary competitors in the international “race to 5G” (Chin, et al.). With infrastructural support from the Chinese government, Huawei — the primary telecommunications provider for the entire country — is positioned to achieve widespread 5G coverage more quickly than international competitors. Unlike in China’s case, where there is one clear national preference for a telecommunications operator, American telecommunications providers must either decide to set up costly 5G infrastructures independently, or cooperate to build a 5G network that can provide coverage to the entire country (McKinnon, et al.). In response, the White House has signaled that it is considering providing governmental support to boost nationwide 5G coverage (Trump).
Clearly, the race to 5G has elements of political ideology and global power struggles at its core. China’s looming rise to market dominance in a field once led by the Western superpowers of the “free world” poses implications for national organization in the modern age. China’s recent economic plan “Made in China 2025” announces the country’s goals to become a global manufacturing leader by 2025. If Huawei’s 5G network surpasses American telecom providers, China may set the precedent for future generations of information technologies in a 5G world (Trump). A report from the US Chamber of Commerce on the “Made in China 2025” argues that China should “reduce subsidies and other distortions in the domestic economy” in order to strengthen international relations (U. S. Chamber of Commerce, p.5). Under present conditions, it seems possible that China will be the first country that will implement 5G coverage on a national scale. To retain supremacy in the field of telecommunications, the American government thus faces a stark choice: compel China to slow its nationally coordinated technological development or follow suit with China and subsidize its own telecommunications industry.
Despite the White House signaling its anxiety over China’s rise to technological competitiveness, a report from the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) cautions against the creation of a “Government 5G Wholesale Network”. Importantly, the FCC report by O’Rielly notes that a nationalized 5G network will not ensure data security, arguing that it is virtually impossible to guarantee that any 5G network “can be completely secure … especially in a 5G universe where computing will be diffuse and not centralized, generating unlimited exposure points” (O’Rielly). In fact, the report argues that, if anything, the United States’ creation of a nationalized 5G network might push international actors away from adopting the comparatively more expensive, market-based American technology in favor of China cheaper, nationally subsidized 5G internet technologies.
Regardless of how the United States chooses to treat 5G policy moving forward, this section has briefly highlighted some of the institutional and economic organizing principles defining the current international “race to 5G”. Notbaly, we have shown that 5G internet provision has become a topic of intense international competition. China’s nationalized capitalist economy is posed to become the first to successfully establish the cost-heavy project of commercially available 5G infrastructure, which has led the United States to consider implementing a nationalized project of widespread infrastructure provision. However, beyond these questions of costly infrastructure builds, most noteworthy to this section is the question of data security under nationalized versus privatized telecommunications networks. If O’Rielly’s claim is true that nationalized networks are no more or less secure than their privatized counterparts, then it is important that we investigate in further detail some of the political implications of granular 5G data. The following and final section provides
Implicit politics in 5G infrastructures — access to data as a metric of analysis:
The prior two sections of this report highlighted some tensions between the international systems of economic organization in the “race to 5G,” and reviewed some of the critical infrastructure materialities of 5G internet. Focusing now on these materialities as powerful tools for human organization, in this section we review the importance of 5G in context of public administration and state management of citizenry. This section synthesizes a background of socio-technical theories and draws connections between key 5G technology functionalities, and implications for economic and political organization in a 5G internet design paradigm. In the section on 5G materialities above, this report has suggested that the automated quantitative functionality of 5G internet infrastructures is portrayed to lead to an improvement in the qualitative human experience of urban infrastructures. However, the question of access to the granular data produced by 5G technologies leaves us with various ways of interpreting the political consequences of 5G internet moving forward. Specifically, this is a question of determining the contexts in which 5G internet technologies are deployed. This section of the report argues that if 5G is successful in improving the qualitative human experience of infrastructures, it will be a qualitative improvement made within the quantitative scope of state administration.
The background of socio-technical research cited in this section elucidates a method of identifying the implicit politics within technological systems. Mumford’s essay identifies two main categories of technologies, which he terms in the title of the paper as “Authoritarian and Democratic Technics.” Mumford describes authoritarian technics as “system-centered, immensely powerful, but inherently unstable” and democratic technics as “man-centered, relatively weak, but resourceful and durable” (Mumford, p.2). Winner’s text “Do Artifacts Have Politics?” complicates this argument by evaluating political technologies according to the contexts in which they are deployed. According to Winner, some technologies (like the atom bomb) are authoritarian purely by nature of their functionality, while other technologies (like energy grids) are more flexible in their politics and can thus be evaluated by the social organization of people surrounding the technologies (Winner, p.134). This section shows that 5G technologies contain flexible elements which may foster both authoritarian and democratic human organization.
As shown in the material research above, 5G internet renders technological infrastructures “smart,” and automates quantitative processes of infrastructure administration. Greengard’s book “The Internet of Things” reports on this technological automation, suggesting that “the Internet of Things will lead to global, immersive, invisible, ambient networked computing environment that relies on smart sensors, cameras, software, databases, and massive data centers” (Greengard, p.173). While this automation may improve the quality of experience for humans who access these smart infrastructures, currently undetermined is the degree of public access to the data generated by these smart technologies. In the first of three substantive sections of this report, a quote from London’s chief digital officer aptly describes this sensitive balance between public access to, and security of, 5G data. Hyper-granular data can be highly personal, revealing sensitive and powerful information about system usage to whomever has access to this data. According to Thatcher, O’Sullivan and Mahmoudi, “an individual dispossessed and alienated from the very data they generate, [is] one who has been reduced to a set of data points created through technology use that places users within abstracted, aggregate identities” (p.998, Thatcher, et al.). In other words, the technological quantification of human life — here, in the case of 5G data — is an act of state control, whose motives lie beyond the scope of qualitative community organization.
Mumford cautions against the individual subscription to these quantitative technical systems, saying that once life is surrendered to scientific enumeration “authoritarian technics will give back as much of it as can be mechanically graded, quantitatively multiplied, collectively manipulated and magnified" (Mumford, p.6). Continuing this cautionary tale of quantitative powers, Deleuze and Guattari’s analysis of “royal sciences” and “nomadology” demonstrates how an inherently weak state seizes the original “man of war”. Deleuze and Guattari refer to the “war machine” — a concept which aligns with Mumford’s idea of democratic technics as resourceful, productive, yet disparate human action — as exterior to the state. Deleuze and Guattari demonstrate how the statist model of sovereignty seizes and mobilizes the productive capacities of disparate human action, “but sovereignty only reigns over what it is capable of internalizing, of appropriating locally" (Deleuze and Guattari, p.15). Thus, quantitative powers and “royal sciences” reproduce themselves, but only within the field that the state’s organizing body can seize through quantification.
The question of access to publicly generated user-data is where 5G’s inherent political qualities come to light. If the granular levels of data generated by 5G technologies are internalized by either state or corporate powers, works by Mumford, Thatcher (et al.) and Deleuze and Guattari suggest that these connected infrastructures and massive data effectively expand the field of state internalization through increased powers of quantification. However, I would like to argue here against a deterministic view of 5G technologies as inherently authoritarian. Drawing on Akrich’s concepts of the “prescription” and “de-scription” of technologies helps us understand how technologies are shaped, and reshaped by their human users. Akrich implores us not only to consider how technologies are prescribed by their designers, but to also ask how the same technologies are subsequently de-scribed by their human users. “Once considered in this way,” Akrich argues, “the boundary between the inside and the outside of an object comes to be seen as a consequence of such interaction rather than something that determines it" (Akrich, p.206). Thus, as long as technology users are able to re-appropriate and de-scribe the technologies they use, individual citizens will not be completely subsumed into the state and corporate powers which provide these technologies.
It is precisely this political interplay between the designers and the users of a specific technological system which leads Akrich to suggest that "even in those cases where there are marked political implications, it is first necessary to interest and persuade the actors to play the roles proposed for them" (Akrich, p.214). Here, Akrich cites the national establishment of an electric grid in the Ivory Coast as an act of “citizen making,” and concludes that most villagers voluntarily opted to join the nationalized electric grid by virtue of the value-additive tools it bestowed to them. Therefore, although the state provision of infrastructures can be seen as a coercive act of citizen making, we should also acknowledge the power that citizens maintain in forming a relationship with the state. 5G infrastructures will indeed automate a good deal of the menial tasks that humans need to perform manually today. If this is the case, it must be asked whether — following Akrich — it is worth subscribing to the new 5G “smart” technologies in hopes of later user de-scription, or rather — following Mumford — if doing so will ensure that “every residual autonomy will be wiped out" for good (Mumford, p.2).
Whatever the case, it appears that 5G technologies will automate many of the productive processes that require manual labor and human mediation under today’s technological capabilities. Rifkin’s book “The Zero Marginal Cost Society" speculates that the automation of extreme productive capacities will bring production costs down to a marginal “net-zero” cost, and thus usher in a paradigmatic shift in economic organization Rifkin defines as “collaborativist”. Specifically relevant to this research report, Rifkin cites the massive amount of data generated by 5G technologies as part of a “Collaborative Commons”. Rifkin points to the emergent sharing economy as an example of how pre-5G internet already facilitates forms of peer-to-peer collaboration which evade charges levied by propertied middleman services. In “the Internet Generation,” Rifkin argues, “freedom is measured more by access to others in networks than [by] ownership of property in markets” (Rifkin, p.226).
As a final note, it is important to note that Rifkin’s claim of a shift toward a “collaborativist” economic paradigm is highly speculative, and depends on several currently unrealized social and material assumptions. Rifkin’s argument poses the collaborativist economic shift as a natural telos, and fails to account for the fate of existing large swaths of privately held global capital. In summary, this section of the report concludes that 5G infrastructures provide a flexible technological framework for either authoritarian or democratic governance. Despite this flexibility for democratic state administration through 5G technologies, it is clear that the granular data generated by smart 5G infrastructures expands the quantitative field of state internalization. Moving forward to the conclusion, this report advocates for public access to 5G data as a key metric of analysis for determining whether 5G infrastructures enable authoritarian or democratic state administration.
Conclusion: toward the (de)centralized access to 5G data:
This report has attempted to provide a socio-technical analysis of 5G internet technologies at the front-end of their commercial implementation. To do so, we have deployed Çalışkan and Callon’s theory of economization to analyze 5G design frameworks. Restated from the literature review section, Çalışkan and Callon identify three main actors in processes of economization, “(1) the theories of the economy; (2) the institutional and technical arrangements that enhance the capacities of human agents for action and cognition; [and] (3) the things which are being valued whose materiality influences the modes of valuation that are possible and their outcomes” (Çalışkan and Callon, 2010, p.3). This report has done so (albeit out of order) in sections: first addressing the materialities of 5G infrastructures, secondly reviewing the two differing modes of economic organization between the United States and China in the “race to 5G”, and finally providing a theoretical background on how institutional and technological arrangements inform the available social actions for individual users of 5G technologies.
Naturally, elements within each discrete section of this report overlap with each other. This was done intentionally as a way of demonstrating the interconnectedness of the several human and nonhuman agencies located within the socio-technical construction of 5G internet technologies. Ultimately, this report has endeavored to illuminate some of the key dynamics between the actors located within 5G socio-technical structures. Among the dynamics that this report identifies, perhaps most noteworthy is the automation of quantitative functions associated with 5G “smart” infrastructures. While these automated quantitative processes may improve the qualitative human experience within these urban infrastructures, they also prescribe and document these human experiences through the automation of granular 5G data. Depending on the levels of public access to the granular 5G data generated by public use of “smart” infrastructures, 5G technologies can be seen as flexible, in that they allow for both authoritarian and democratic use-cases.
At the time of this writing, 5G technologies are largely still in their earliest testing phases, and for the most part are not available on a widespread commercial scale. This report has provided an analysis of the national and technological motivations that underlie 5G development, specifically in their massive generation of automated, real-time data which produce analytics of human movement within infrastructure on an unprecedented scale. The automation of the tools that facilitate everyday human life will certainly lead to an ease of movement for the individual within urban technological infrastructures. However, the automation of data enabled by 5G internet also exponentially expands the quantitative powers of technological infrastructures. Whether this increased quantitative power is used for authoritarian state control — or conversely for democratic state administration — remains to be seen.
The goal of this research has been to assess 5G internet technologies through a socio-technical lens. Synthesizing information from a range of data sources, this report suggests that 5G technologies must be continually evaluated by the contexts in which they are deployed. 5G technologies simultaneously trend both toward the centralization and decentralization of authority and human decision-making. Restated, 5G internet is expected to lead to the automation of quantitative tasks, and thus an improvement of the qualitative human experience within 5G infrastructures. As 5G technologies become increasingly widespread in the near future, this report suggests that access to 5G data will be the most powerful metric of evaluation for authoritarian or democratic tendencies located within the smart infrastructures enabled by 5G internet.
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