Commerce Official Dabbar Says Allies Must Coordinate on 6G Equipment
Shared standards could help U.S. and allied vendors gain scale and compete in international markets
WASHINGTON, Oct. 14, 2026 — The Trump administration wants the United States and its allies to adopt common standards for 6G wireless equipment, aiming to help western companies compete with Chinese telecom suppliers that gained ground during the 5G rollout.
Commerce Deputy Secretary Paul Dabbar said Wednesday that the administration is working with allied countries to establish an interoperable equipment ecosystem in which products from different vendors can work together. The goal is to help companies achieve the scale needed to compete internationally without requiring every country to use the same equipment suppliers.
“In the 5G time frame, we basically had a closed alternative that was able to get scale because they had a very large home market,” Dabbar said during a fireside chat hosted by the Wireless Infrastructure Association. He said that the market helped suppliers reduce costs and expand globally.
The administration is seeking to avoid a repeat of that dynamic by coordinating standards with allies, Dabbar said. The approach is intended to allow companies to build networks using equipment and software from different vendors while maintaining interoperability.
Dabbar said the administration's 6G Call to Action for Leadership and Security, launched in July 2026, had attracted 27 countries. Together, those countries represent more than 56 percent of the global economy and about 2.5 billion people, he said.
The effort grew out of technology and science agreements negotiated alongside U.S. trade deals, Dabbar said. Rather than requiring participating countries to adopt identical technology, the initiative focuses on common standards for equipment security, software, operating systems and applications.
Dabbar said that fragmentation during the 5G era made it harder for companies to achieve economies of scale because individual markets pursued different approaches. He argued that coordinated standards could create a larger market for U.S. and allied suppliers.
The economic stakes extend beyond equipment sales. Dabbar said companies in democratic countries lost business opportunities during the 5G rollout, while the reliance on Chinese suppliers also raised national security concerns among Western governments.
Dabbar also called on wireless infrastructure companies to work together to assemble complete network systems. He said many companies specialize in particular parts of the technology stack rather than supplying an entire telecommunications system.
An interoperable approach can give customers more flexibility, he said, but it also requires vendors to establish partnerships to ensure their products work together.
Dabbar said common standards are a starting point, not a guarantee of success. Companies will still need to collaborate to develop complete systems that can compete in global markets.
