Federal and local government officials are licking their chops over a wide variety of new services – and improvements on existing ones – that 5G wireless infrastructure and services will allow them to bring to citizens, but also cautioned that a lot of work remains to be done on the to get to those goals.

A new study shows that the transition to 5G wireless services will create an additional 4.6 million jobs in the United States by 2034 – and that the move to the latest generation of wireless technology has created over 100,000 jobs already since last year.

The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) declared victory in a case involving the regulatory power of local governments and the installation of 5G infrastructure.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai proposed Dec. 4 to create a $9 billion fund to support the deployment of 5G wireless services in rural portions of the U.S. The proposal would require approval from a majority of the full five-member commission, with a vote likely sometime in 2020.

The Federal government is looking forward to implementing 5G wireless services as they become available, but building security into 5G services from the beginning will be key to a successful implementation, said officials from the Department of Defense (DoD), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the General Services Administration (GSA).

Rep. William Hurd, R-Texas, stressed at IBM’s Think Gov event today that America needs to lead the world in developing 5G wireless networks and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, especially with China on the rise as a voracious international competitor, and said successful development and application of the two technologies are inextricably linked.

The mayor of Chattanooga, Tenn., pushed back today on the notion that 5G wireless services hold the key for rolling out big “smart-cities” technology improvements, and instead said his city’s gigabit fiber network can handle the job just fine.