The FCC adopted a one-touch, make-ready policy and other pole-attachment changes in a broadband infrastructure order and declaratory ruling approved 3-1 by commissioners at a Thursday meeting. The item also said the agency will pre-empt state and local legal barriers to deployment, including express and de facto moratoriums that prohibit entry or halt buildout. "No moratoriums. No moratoriums. Absolutely no moratoriums," said Commissioner Mike O'Rielly, who also noted some targeted edits to OTMR parts of a draft. Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel agreed with OTMR in concept but partially dissented over "deficiencies in our analysis."
Babette Boliek is a good choice as FCC chief economist, to oversee opening the Office of Economics and Analytics, said Jeffrey Eisenach, visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a job Boliek has also held. Eisenach noted some fear the new office will take the economists out of bureaus where they are “embedded” with the lawyers who “really” run the FCC. “While the ‘Siberia effect’ is a valid concern in theory, the FCC Order establishing the new office makes it unlikely by giving it real bureaucratic ‘throw weight,’ including specific responsibility for overseeing spectrum auctions and a requirement that the office review every rulemaking before it is released to the public and conduct a formal benefit-cost analysis of all major rules,” Eisenach blogged. It “has a fighting chance to ensure that future FCC decisions are made through multidisciplinary collaboration in which economic analysis plays a significant role,” he wrote. “That has often been the case at the Federal Trade Commission, whose Bureau of Economics dates to 1915.”
T-Mobile asked the FCC to clarify that it can bid in spectrum auctions independent of Sprint, despite its proposed purchase of the smaller carrier. T-Mobile said “pending merger agreements” with Sprint aren't a joint-bidding arrangement under FCC rules. T-Mobile said executives spoke with Commissioner Brendan Carr, aides to the other commissioners, Wireless Bureau Chief Donald Stockdale and others. “The Commission intended for the joint-bidding prohibition to be narrow in scope,” the carrier said in docket 18-85. “Over-broad interpretation of the term ‘post-auction market structure’ would create uncertainty over the permissibility of nearly any business decision with the potential to alter the wireless communications sector, in any way or degree. For example, a nationwide provider’s decision to cooperate with another nationwide provider on infrastructure deployment could be said to alter the ‘post-auction market structure’ of the existing wireless sector.”
Senate Commerce Committee staff is eyeing ways to combine language from a set of bills on 5G and broadband deployments for potential committee action later this year, Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters after a Senate Communications Subcommittee hearing on fifth-generation. Lawmakers and industry witnesses invoked bills Wednesday they view as ways to help ensure the U.S. leads global development of 5G. Senate Communications members noted the race for U.S. dominance of the technology as a reason for the federal government to clear T-Mobile's proposed buy of Sprint and concerns that President Donald Trump's administration hasn't fully backed away from a proposal the U.S. build a nationalized fifth-gen network.
Congress must do more to encourage rural broadband deployment, House Communications Subcommittee members said at a hearing Tuesday. There was general bipartisan agreement on the need to promote various technological solutions and on certain ongoing legislative efforts to remove deployment barriers. Discord was heard on federal infrastructure spending and municipal broadband.
A Tuesday House Communications Subcommittee hearing to re-examine proposals to improve rural broadband deployments appears aimed in part at looking at what lawmakers can do in the next Congress given the limited legislative work time left this year, communications sector officials and lobbyists said in interviews. House Communications aimed to revisit the broadband proposals after recent FCC and congressional efforts (see 1807130065). A House Commerce Committee GOP staff memo notes language from several bills House Communications reviewed in January made it into the Repack Airwaves Yielding Better Access for Users of Modern Services (Ray Baum's) Act FCC reauthorization and spectrum legislative package (HR-4986), which President Donald Trump signed into law as part of the $1.3 trillion FY 2018 omnibus spending bill (HR-1625). House Commerce also cleared other broadband legislation recently (see 1803230038 and 1807120063).
The FCC will auction off three more high-frequency bands in the second half of 2019, Chairman Ajit Pai said Wednesday as he unveiled the items for an Aug. 2 commissioners’ meeting. Pai said the meeting will focus on 5G, with draft rules for the first high-band spectrum auctions targeted for a vote. Pai also tentatively plans votes on a draft order to adopt "one-touch, make-ready" pole attachments and bar state and locality moratoriums on network buildouts, a draft order on broadcast ownership diversification through incubators and a draft notice of inquiry on creating a $100 million telehealth pilot program.
Supreme Court prospect Thomas Hardiman has ruled for and against FCC rules governing small business bidding credits in wireless spectrum auctions, but never reversed auction results. The judge of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals since 2007 reportedly remained in contention to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy on the high court, along with the D.C. Circuit's Brett Kavanaugh, the 6th Circuit's Raymond Kethledge and the 7th Circuit's Amy Coney Barrett. Kavanaugh has by far the most extensive record on telecom and media law. Kavanaugh -- in dissenting from 2017's USTelecom ruling (here) upholding the FCC's 2015 net neutrality order -- and Kethledge (here) have voiced skepticism about broadly deferring to regulatory agencies on ambiguous statutes under the Chevron doctrine (see 1807040001). President Donald Trump planned to have announced his nominee Monday night.
Bidirectional sharing of commercial spectrum for federal users to have access to commercial spectrum has emerged as a Trump administration focus. Proposals remain controversial for carriers.
The Senate Commerce Committee's Wednesday hearing for FCC nominee Geoffrey Starks will likely provide further insights on the nominee but don't expect major surprises, lawmakers and communications industry officials said in interviews. He would succeed former Commissioner Mignon Clyburn (see 1806010072 and 1806040067). Senate Commerce has been working to fast-track its consideration of Starks, who remains largely unknown to many (see 1806120047 and 1806150031).