San Jose Reveals More Small-Cells Deals; Levin Slams BDAC

smart-city tech that may include LED smart lighting, public Wi-Fi and infrastructure monitoring services. Under the other agreements, Mobilitie will deploy small cells, while Verizon plans to deploy small cells and fiber, upgrade several macro-cell towers and pilot traffic-management smart city technology, the city said. The City Council plans to vote on the agreements at its June 26 meeting. The companies together are expected to invest $500 million to install small cells on about 4,000 city-owned light poles, plus add fiber and associated infrastructure, San Jose said. They will contribute $24 million over 10 years to the city’s digital inclusion fund, the city said. “We hope that these public-private partnerships can serve as a national model for equitably deploying next generation broadband technologies in a way that puts the public’s interest first,” said San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo, who resigned in protest from the FCC’s Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (see 1801250049). The deals reflect “what happens when both sides agree to serve the community rather than wait for an external force to put their thumb on the scale,” said Best Best local government attorney Gerry Lederer. He highlighted the agreements’ inclusion of a sliding scale for rent, upfront commitments to a digital equity fund and large upfront payments for permit costs and process improvements. The deals couldn’t have happened without Gov. Jerry Brown’s (D) veto of last year’s California small-cells bill, said Lederer, saying the FCC should avoid disrupting such agreements. Contrary to the current FCC view, local governments should have more authority and freedom, Brookings Institution fellow Blair Levin said in a Friday report. The BDAC has “worthy goals,” but “suffers from significant failures of design and execution,” including a membership dominated by industry, he said. The BDAC and FCC probably “will adopt a framework in which industry gets all the benefits with no obligations, and municipalities will be forced to bear all the costs and receive no guaranteed benefits,” he said. “This kind of process will result in a transfer of wealth from public to private enterprises -- and leave American cities and metropolitan areas no better positioned to tap into digital telecommunications to unlock innovation and shared economic prosperity.” The FCC didn’t comment.