Can net neutrality survive 5G?

BARCELONA—A one-size-fits-all approach to net neutrality won't work in a 5G world, Ericsson CEO Börje Ekholm said at an MWC press conference.

"Not all traffic is created equal," he said. "In the 5G future, mission-critical apps such as remote surgery will have to take priority over other traffic. There will need to be a regulatory regime that allows the service provider to create services that are differentiated based on user experiences."

Here's Ekholm's problem: he's Swedish. So he's probably thinking about reasonable governments that operate based on some sort of societal consensus, not the completely broken politics we have in the US.

Our political net neutrality debate currently see-saws between the extremes of "ISPs should be allowed to put their customers in debt bondage!" and "ISPs can't shape traffic at all!" when the reality on the ground is already much more complicated, especially when you include mobile networks, which aren't neutral at all.

"We cannot discriminate based on content or degrade performance," Ekholm said, "but I think there are mission-critical use cases which need to be thought of differently. Remote surgery is one. Can you allow that traffic not to have priority? I can't see that. That's probably why we need a different type of regulatory regime here."

While North America is helping drive early 5G development because of more high-band available spectrum, Ekholm said, that lead could shrink if North American regulators don't release more mid-band spectrum for 5G, he said.

In this analyst's view, an inconsistent government approach and a lack of trust between government, industry, and the people may be the biggest hurdle of all.

This article originally appeared on PCMag.com.