New Street’s Blair Levin on Wednesday slammed the $20 billion rural digital opportunity fund, calling it a huge failure, during a Broadband Breakfast webinar. Approved under former President Donald Trump, RDOF has its defenders, including FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, who has called it a bigger success than the BEAD program, which President Joe Biden approved (see 2409270032).
California's top assemblymember on communications is concerned about the state's process for distributing broadband cash and what President-elect Donald Trump might do to its $1.86 billion federal BEAD allocation. In an exclusive Communications Daily Q&A ahead of Monday's opening of the new legislative session, Assembly Communications and Conveyance Committee Chair Tasha Boerner (D) said she expects she will resurrect her proposal that creates a single state broadband office. And the committee will try again on a digital discrimination bill that failed to pass in the last session. Our conversation below with Boerner was lightly edited for length and clarity.
FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel this week listed making communications “more just for more people in more places,” protecting consumers and “leaning into the future” as among her core values during her FCC career. In a post summarizing her 2024 accomplishments, she also mentioned “making communications available to all” and “putting national security and public safety front and center” as guiding principles. “I believe these are the things we need to do to build a digital future that works for everyone,” she wrote. “I am gratified to see that the FCC has made real progress to advance these principles during 2024, defining my time at the agency.” In the post, Rosenworcel laid out all the actions the agency has taken, from the affordable connectivity program, to creating a Missing and Endangered Persons event code, to responding to the Salt Typhoon cyberattack (see 2412300039). Salt Typhoon “has resulted in unprecedented coordination between the FCC and our national security counterparts across government,” she said. During her tenure, the FCC “engaged with over 540 representatives and stakeholders across 78 countries to share FCC best practices, strengthen relationships, and advocate our positions on topics ranging from robocalls to spectrum management and satellite licensing to media and broadcast issues,” Rosenworcel said. “Everything I have mentioned in this note was made possible by working together with my colleagues at the agency and, of course, the remarkable public servants at the FCC, who have a deep and dynamic understanding of communications technology.” She added, “I am grateful for their efforts and proud of what we accomplished together to build a digital future that works for everyone.”
It's "not too late" for Nevada to change course on its BEAD plan, Information Technology & Innovation Foundation Director-Broadband and Spectrum Policy Joe Kane blogged Thursday. Kane said the state's provisional choices for allocating its funding, which required NTIA approval, "reflect a misunderstanding of the digital divide." The state could deploy high-speed low-earth-orbit satellite service for $600 per location. "Nevada could use savings from a more reasonable deployment plan to provide a similar affordability benefit to its low-income residents" as the FCC's affordable connectivity program, he said. Nevada's Office of Science, Innovation & Technology didn't comment. Kane also urged NTIA to revise its fiber preference in BEAD program rules (see 2412130011). NTIA should stop its "irrational preferencing of fiber deployments and require that states choose the most economical technologies to complete deployment so that leftover funds can address more widespread and serious causes of the digital divide," he said.
Backers of the revised AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act (HR-8449) signaled Wednesday they want to move swiftly on the proposal next year after congressional leaders didn't reach a deal to include it in a continuing resolution that extends federal appropriations through March 14. The CR released Tuesday night includes language from the NTIA Reauthorization Act (HR-4510) and several other telecom and tech bills. Meanwhile, the Senate voted 85-15 Wednesday to pass the FY 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (HR-5009) with language that would authorize the AWS-3 reauction to offset $3.08 billion in funding for the FCC’s Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program (see 2412070001).
Charter Communications should launch its "video store" in the first half of 2025, CEO Chris Winfrey said Tuesday at UBS' Media and Communications Conference. Subscribers will be able to manage their video services, including direct-to-consumer streaming services they access via Charter, at the video store. He didn't provide an estimate of Q4 residential broadband results but said Charter will likely see more than 100,000 disconnects due to the end of the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), as well as larger-than-expected impacts from the fall's hurricanes. The hurricanes will likely cost Charter 30,000 subscribers, though most will return. Winfrey said cable internet service providers have done a subpar job of telling subscribers that "cellphone internet" fixed wireless is lower quality and costs more. He said Charter is retaining most of its 5+ million ACP subscribers, with fewer than 10% leaving. But those subscribers are more likely to bounce between having connectivity and being unconnected, he said.
FCC Communications Equity and Diversity Council members are concerned the advisory committee won’t be allowed to continue its work once Commissioner Brendan Carr takes over the agency, and the group used its final 2024 in-person meeting Friday to present arguments for its continued operation.
Much of FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr's agenda as the agency's incoming chair doesn't require an FCC majority to move forward, New Street Research's Blair Levin noted Monday. Part of that is because Carr can get Congress to act, and some is due to the delegated authority FCC bureaus have, Levin said. Carr's efforts to investigate tech companies and amplify the voice of conservatives on social media platforms don't require a formal FCC proceeding, he said. For example, Carr can tie up Skydance's proposed Paramount purchase, which would signal other networks that unfavorable news coverage could affect M&A approvals. In addition, Carr could have the FCC general counsel issue a policy statement about Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act that eliminates the expansive immunities courts have read into the statute, Levin said. And Carr doesn't need a majority to stop work on items with which he disagrees, such as bulk billing rules, Levin said. Outgoing Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel "never effectively used her bully pulpit [and thus] had the least consequential term as Chair in modern FCC history," he argued. She failed on such issues as losing spectrum auction authority and not getting an extension of the affordable connectivity program, Levin said. Mentioning Levin's note during a Practising Law Institute event Tuesday, Carr said Levin would need “a food taster” at that night's FCBA annual dinner. Levin's note is a reminder that “it's all downhill from here" for his upcoming stint as chairman, Carr said. “They like you on the way in, they definitely do not on the way out, and I don't expect that pattern to be broken any time soon,” he said. Rosenworcel Chief of Staff Narda Jones said during a different PLI panel that she hadn't read Levin's essay but that her boss was proud of the FCC’s work “to reach communities and stakeholders who haven't necessarily been the focus of the commission's work before.” She pointed to the ACP, formation of the Space Bureau, maternal health mapping, and the Missing and Endangered Persons alarm code as important achievements of the Rosenworcel FCC.
FCC Commissioner and incoming Chairman Brendan Carr on Tuesday discussed empowering local broadcasters, moving "aggressively” on USF revisions and opening up the space economy and jumpstarting spectrum policy. Speaking at the Practising Law Institute's 42nd Annual Institute on Telecommunications Policy & Regulation, Carr said he's “really looking forward” to taking the commission's top seat.
Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, could shift the direction Congress’ USF revamp takes when he becomes the panel’s chairman in January, lawmakers and lobbyists told us. Observers believe his impact on what Congress decides will partially depend on how the U.S. Supreme Court rules when it reviews the FCC appeal of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling in favor of Consumers' Research's challenge of the USF contribution methodology (see 2411220050). A high court ruling upholding the 5th Circuit could shift momentum in favor of Cruz’s proposal that Congress make USF funding part of the appropriations process, officials said.