Wicker Seeks to Pass Telecom Bills, as Congress Moves on From Impeachment

Wicker praised Trump’s broadband mention in last week’s State of the Union address (see 2002050060) and said the FCC’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) and upcoming 5G Fund for Rural America will help bridge the divide. “We ought to be able to pretty much get there by now, but we’ve got a long way to go.” RDOF will bring broadband to millions of homes and small businesses, while the 5G fund picks up from the “flawed” Mobility Fund Phase II program that was terminated last year by the FCC, said Wicker. The $9 billion 5G fund will bring the latest wireless technology to “rural America in places where we haven’t had 4G,” he said.

NARUC will weigh a proposed resolution this week seeking accurate maps and an unserved focus for the 5G fund (see 2001300031), which may be a topic at the March FCC meeting (see 2002050048). Congress and the FCC now realize existing broadband maps are “nonsense,” said Wicker. He said he hopes for unanimous House passage of his Senate-passed Broadband Deployment Accuracy and Technological Availability (Broadband Data) Act (see 2001280003).

Despite high partisanship in Congress, Wicker sees “more bipartisan agreement than you might guess” on a net neutrality bill he’s working on with Arizona's Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (see 1910240070). She and Wicker want a “light-touch” approach that prevents blocking and throttling without Title II regulation, he said.

On Wicker’s bill to strip and replace Huawei equipment in U.S. telecom networks (see 2001300050), the Commerce Committee chair said he spoke about next steps a few days ago with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. Wicker said he’s aiming for unanimous support in both congressional houses.

Broadband Task Force

NARUC’s broadband task force held an organizational meeting Sunday to open a two-year charter, Presley told state commissioners. South Dakota Commissioner Chris Nelson (R) will chair and Nebraska Commissioner Crystal Rhoades (D) will vice-chair the committee, said Presley, the Democratic chairman of the Mississippi Public Service Commission (see personals section, this issue).

The task force talked Sunday about “key things we want to look at,” an initial timeline and how the panel will operate, Nelson said in an interview here. The meeting wasn’t fully attended since membership wasn’t known until Friday, he said. Nelson expects the committee to meet by phone before the next in-person meeting that’s likely to be at July's NARUC Summer Policy Summit in Boston, he said.

Members seek to produce takeaways for state commissioners to advance broadband, Nelson said. The end product won’t be a “nebulous” white paper; instead it will focus on what has worked and can be adapted elsewhere, he said. The body probably will propose resolutions for NARUC’s Telecom Committee, he said.

One part of the group’s charter is to find ways for NARUC to work better with the FCC, said the chair. “There have been some areas of friction. How can we move past that, so we’re both serving the people of this broadband where it isn’t.”

Funding Concerns

NARUC’s 5G fund resolution Sunday cleared the Telecom Staff Subcommittee without negative feedback, said Nelson, who sponsored the proposal. Tweaks were mostly technical, though the full committee will probably discuss how prescriptive to be about the mechanism the FCC should use to ensure maps are accurate, he said: If data is current and accurate, “I personally don’t care how they get it.”

Some have concerns about the RDOF order saying Phase I auctions won't be open to census block groups that received state subsidies for 25/3 Mbps (see 2002070031). Nelson said he understands FCC concerns about not wanting taxpayers to fund the same project a second time through RDOF. “How it plays out in reality … is what we need to analyze." Make sure it doesn't inhibit broadband deployment, he said.

The FCC seemed to largely resolve NARUC concerns about RDOF letter of credit requirements, Nelson said. “We want as many people involved in the auction as possible, as long as they can actually do what they claim.”

The state funding question is a “very known issue that we’re trying to resolve,” said FCC Rural Broadband Auctions Task Force Deputy Director Jonathan McCormack on a later panel.

The FCC means to exclude only areas that already have 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload speeds without RDOF, not stop them from accessing state or other funds, McCormack said. The bureaus will soon release a public notice further detailing how states can participate, and the FCC will work with states to ensure places aren’t left behind, he said. Phase one will include a limited challenge process to contest areas the FCC lists as eligible but are actually served, he added.

RDOF shouldn’t fund overbuilding, but the policy could have unintended consequences, said NTCA Senior Vice President-Industry Affairs Mike Romano. It could prevent an area that previously got a 25/3 Mbps grant from upgrading to gigabit service, he said. It’s unclear if areas that got loans would be ineligible, he said. States that require 25/3 Mbps in state USF might be ineligible, he said. It also could mean companies that went beyond the 10/1 Mbps requirements of previous USF funding will lose the support as their “reward,” the NTCA official said. Such ISPs still need that support for maintenance and operations, he said.

Nebraska Commissioner Rhoades asked why the FCC would launch phase one before getting the better data that the FCC plans to use in phase two. McCormack replied the FCC already knows about many locations that lack sufficient service, where no one is challenging that data, and the agency doesn’t want to keep pushing off sending money to places that desperately need it.