FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler is expected to address...
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler is expected to address the House’s rural telecom working group at the end of the month, a Hill staffer told the NARUC subcommittee in Washington Friday. Reps. Bob Latta, R-Ohio, and Peter Welch, D-Vt., announced the…
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creation of the working group last spring. Patrick Satalin, an aide to Welch, said Wheeler would be addressing the working group. Any Communications Act overhaul will be “front and center” and leave other items “overshadowed,” said Olivia Trusty, an aide to Latta. She expects the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act reauthorization process, E-rate expansion, spectrum auctions and FirstNet to be major topics in 2014. She anticipates a Communications Act revamp white paper on public safety later this year, among the others that House Republicans have promised as part of updating the Communications Act. Trusty mentioned the Republican Commerce Committee leadership request that the FCC refer any E-rate expansion to the Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service and called that “a good recommendation.” Welch is focused on the potential benefits of smaller spectrum license sizes and call completion problems, which the FCC is looking at, Satalin said: “Hopefully they continue to beat the drum there.” Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., sees E-rate expansion as “extremely important,” Markey Senior Policy Adviser Joey Wender said. “The next step is increasing the speed and making sure there’s access throughout buildings.” Wender mentioned the IP transition and privacy as major issues on Markey’s agenda. Josh Lynch, aide to Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., said data security and the questions on the Target breach are important. Lynch sees potential for “bipartisan consensus,” referring to the FCC Process Reform Act that cleared the House Commerce Committee in December and was introduced in the Senate last week. Those in the Senate perhaps do “need to take a look at the bill,” Wender said.