Pai Wants Cooperation from Local Officials on Speeding Up Wireless Siting
Chairman Ajit Pai urged state and local officials to work with the FCC on speeding up siting of new telecom facilities. Pai said he has made no decision on net neutrality rules other than they should be market-based and stable. He also backed revisions to the Sunshine Act. Pai spoke Wednesday at a Free State Foundation conference, interviewed by FSF President Randolph May. (For other FSF coverage, see 1705310027 and 1705310057).
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“We’re all in this together,” Pai said. “Our consumers are increasingly demanding a better path for mobile conductivity and, to me, at least, that means that every official at every level of government -- local, state, federal -- should work cooperatively and proactively to make sure that we have a regulatory framework that incentivizes the construction of 5G networks, the deployment of 5G spectrum.” Pai said he has consistently urged streamlining the rules for small cells as “tens of thousands” are deployed: “You shouldn’t have to jump through the same hoops with respect to environmental review or historic preservation as you would for a macro cell site.”
At the local level, some local governments have what is in effect a moratorium on new deployments, Pai said. “That doesn’t serve consumers well, either,” he said. “At the end of the day, I think we’re all striving toward the same goal.” The FCC will move "as quickly as we can” to speed deployment, he said. “We all stand to gain from this.” In April, it sought comment on how to speed wireless and wireline infrastructure deployment and Pai labeled April “infrastructure month.” The agency is expected to approve rules in the fall (see 1705230057).
Commissioner Mike O’Rielly was in New Orleans Wednesday, inspecting cell sites and complaining about infrastructure hurdles, and separately called for action. “Painful to see small wireless cells stuck in morass of New Orleans process to get power to site,” O’Rielly tweeted. “We can't have cell sites rotting [because of] local governments,” he tweeted. “New Orleans citizens deserve wireless broadband.” O’Rielly was at the Wireless Infrastructure Association conference last week (see 1705260052), where he pushed for FCC rules speeding up siting approvals.
On net neutrality, Pai said he was largely on the same page as former Democratic FCC Chairman William Kennard. For networks to be built across the nation, “we need to make sure that companies have the incentive and the ability to invest,” Pai said. Broadband companies “need to know that the rules aren’t going to shift depending on the year or who had what for breakfast,” he said.
Regulations must also be “market based,” Pai said. He said he remains open-minded and declined to comment on when the FCC would act on net neutrality. Divided commissioners two weeks ago approved an NPRM on the classification of broadband and net neutrality (see 1705180029). “We’re going to go where the facts and the law take us,” Pai said. The FCC hopes for a full record on the NPRM, he said.
Pai said he supported revising the Sunshine Act to allow more than two commissioners to be on a call together or meet without violating the law. The act “was well intentioned” but “has actually worked to impede collaboration,” Pai said. “I would hope that Congress would take a more modern, forward-looking view.”
Pai cited as an example when he was on the FCC Federal-State Joint Board on USF with Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and then-Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel. “Two of us would be on a call and then one of our staffers would say, ‘OK, it’s been 15 minutes … you’ve got to jump off so that Commissioner Rosenworcel can jump on,’” he said. “I would then have to get briefed by my staff as to what happened on the call. It’s sort of this random game of telephone.”
​“The chairman … is right,” Commissioner Mike O’Rielly tweeted. “Sunshine law prevents Commissioner discussions -- same opinion I had as a minority Commissioner.”
Pai said release of draft items when they're circulated to commissioners has been a “fantastic success” (see 1702020051). “I never understood why the agency would only let the American public see what it was doing after it had already done it,” he said. Pai said he always was given reasons when he asked why items couldn’t or shouldn’t be circulated early. “In the second week, we did it,” he said. “The world has gone on.” With the release of the draft items “it’s all public,” Pai said. “There’s no innuendo. There’s no spinning from the chairman. There’s nothing other than the cold, hard text.”
May asked Pai whether the FCC still should be reviewing deals that the DOJ already is examining. Pai replied that decision was up to Congress.