A Wednesday Senate Commerce Committee oversight hearing with NTIA Administrator David Redl will likely -- to varying degrees -- focus on the federal spectrum policies of President Donald Trump's administration (see 1806120056), improving national broadband map data accuracy and the 2016 Internet Assigned Numbers Authority transition, said lawmakers and communications sector experts in interviews. The hearing will begin at 2:30 p.m. in 253 Russell. It's Redl's first before Senate Commerce since his November confirmation (see 1711070076, 1711070084 and 1711080015). Redl also testified during a March House Communications Subcommittee hearing.
CTIA, the Wireless Infrastructure Association and 14 other groups urged Congress Monday to act on the Advancing Innovation and Reinvigorating Widespread Access to Viable Electromagnetic Spectrum (Airwaves) Act. HR-4953/S-1682, filed in the Senate in August, aims to identify spectrum for unlicensed use and free up mid-band spectrum for wireless industry purchase via a future FCC auction (see 1708010069). House Communications Subcommittee Vice Chairman Leonard Lance, R-N.J., and ranking member Mike Doyle, D-Pa., filed the House version in February (see 1802070054). HR-4953/S-1682 “provides the certainty necessary for the U.S. to reclaim global wireless leadership by establishing clear auction deadlines for substantial amounts of low-, mid- and high-band spectrum," the groups wrote the act’s House and Senate sponsors. They praised emphasis on rural connectivity, saying had its provisions “been in place, the previous two spectrum auctions alone would have resulted in a rural broadband investment of more than $6 billion," or more than the FCC Mobility Fund will make available over a decade.
Commissioners were in lockstep Thursday as they approved a high-band Further NPRM, though there was a party-line rift over the pre-auction limit of 1250 MHz of millimeter-wave spectrum that any party can buy at auction. The agency is sending "confusing signals" to industry given those limits and yet not committing to a time frame for making available more spectrum, said sole Democratic Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, who dissented in part. Her support of the pre-auction limits was unclear (see 1805250058). The FCC said there was no substantive changes from the draft, but the approved item wasn't released Thursday. Commissioners also Thursday approved a telecom discontinuance streamlining order and six other items (see 1806070021).
Between now and the U.S. 5G future sit hurdles ranging from an "urban crunch" of spectrum availability to the morass of dealing with legions of local zoning and permitting steps, speakers said at an Axios event Wednesday. North America “started late” on 5G standardization, behind the Far East, but the country has reversed its position in the past two years and the first large-scale rollout likely will happen within the next 12 months in the U.S., said Ericsson North America CEO Niklas Heuveldop.
Chairman Ajit Pai defended the FCC December order to rescind 2015 net neutrality rules amid criticism Thursday from Senate Appropriations Financial Services Subcommittee Democrats, a day after the Senate voted 52-47 to pass a Congressional Review Act resolution aimed at repealing the rescission order (see 1805160064). FTC Chairman Joseph Simons, in his first Capitol Hill appearance since becoming the head earlier this month (see 1805010026), faced questions on his vision of the trade commission's policy role on net neutrality, privacy and data security issues.
House Appropriations Financial Services Subcommittee Democrats used a hearing Thursday on the FCC's FY 2019 budget request to criticize Ajit Pai's actions since becoming chairman at the beginning of 2017, including media ownership actions seen as benefiting Sinclair's proposed buy of Tribune and the December rescission of net neutrality rules. Republican appropriators highlighted Pai's goals and dived into how the commission would implement telecom policy elements included in the FY 2018 omnibus spending bill that President Donald Trump signed in March (see 1803210041, 1803210068, 1803220048 and 1803230038). The omnibus included text of the Repack Airwaves Yielding Better Access for Users of Modern Services (Ray Baum's) Act FCC reauthorization and spectrum legislative package (HR-4986).
The FCC approved a public notice on the first auctions of millimeter-wave spectrum for 5G. The Tuesday vote was 5-0, though Commissioner Mignon Clyburn concurred, at what she later said is her last meeting, because of her concern the notice should ask additional questions (see 1804170021). A day earlier, CTIA said the U.S. is falling behind China in the race to the next generation of wireless (see 1804160056). U.S. carriers have been focused on high frequency bands in their initial rollouts of 5G with tests underway and commercial launches expected later this year.
FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly said rural telco subsidies could be increased somewhat while better fiscal discipline is brought to the overall USF mechanism. The "real issue" for USF is the budget, he said, and while the high-cost program has been relatively "stagnant," other programs have grown over the years. "We can't constantly double" funding for E-rate, Lifeline and rural healthcare, he said at an NTCA policy conference Monday, noting he was pushing for a hard Lifeline budget. O'Rielly, who was interviewed by NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield, wants a "happy medium" for high-cost funding: rural telcos may not get everything they want but "hopefully" regulatory changes could "get you most the way there" and remove "barriers to your offerings."
On the eve of the FCC vote on an NPRM on the security of U.S. communications networks, CTIA warned in a report Monday that the U.S. has fallen behind China in the race to 5G. Commissioners also will vote Tuesday on a public notice on the first auctions of millimeter-wave spectrum for 5G. The auction notice appears likely to get a 5-0 vote, industry and agency officials said Monday.
House and Senate Commerce leaders told us they aim to continue work on telecom infrastructure legislation and tackle a raft of other communications policy issues, after their success just before the recess in enacting a range of telecom policy provisions as part of the $1.3 trillion FY 2018 omnibus spending bill (see 1803210041, 1803210068, 1803220048 and 1803230038). How the committees will prioritize those issues remained unclear last week, though the lawmakers and lobbyists acknowledged that follow-up on last week’s twin hearings with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on the Cambridge Analytica data privacy controversy (see 1804100054 and 1804110065) could be a lingering factor. It’s beginning to look increasingly less likely that Capitol Hill will be able to produce any communications legislation of the same scope as what lawmakers accomplished in the omnibus, in part because of the dwindling legislative timeline before the November midterm elections, lobbyists said.