FCC Should Further Update DAS, Small-Cell Rules, Pai Says
The FCC should modernize its rules to exempt distributed antenna systems (DAS) from most agency environmental processing requirements and update historic preservation regulations to take account of DAS and small cells, Commissioner Ajit Pai said Tuesday at a PCIA conference in Orlando. Pai warned that too often wireless infrastructure doesn’t get the attention it deserves in policy discussions. The FCC posted Pai’s written comments (http://fcc.us/1i0uNmK).
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"Some seem to forget that towers, antennas, backhaul, and other infrastructure are essential,” Pai said. “It doesn’t matter how much spectrum we make available, consumers won’t have wireless service if operators can’t deploy wireless infrastructure in a timely manner.” The U.S. faces a “data tsunami,” with mobile data traffic expected to increase eightfold by 2018, he warned. Pai said the world is moving to an Internet of Things “made up of connected watches, appliances, and even clothes.” Wireless “speeds and capacities are going to have to increase significantly to meet these demands,” he said. “That’s where infrastructure comes in.”
Local regulation often is an impediment to building out infrastructure, Pai warned, recalling a recent meeting with a group of mobile entrepreneurs in San Francisco who couldn’t get passable mobile reception in their building. “Why? Because local regulations made it nearly impossible for any wireless company, big or small, to deploy more towers and other infrastructure in the city,” he said. The businessmen innovated, using chicken wire to build their own wireless mesh network on the building roof, Pai said. “Something has gone wrong with regulation -- really wrong -- if the best wireless solution for entrepreneurs in San Francisco is the same technology that farmers in my home state of Kansas use to keep wayward birds in the coop."
Pai would exempt DAS from FCC environmental regulations except for those involving radio frequency emissions. “Our rules let us do this if a technology is ‘deemed to have no significant effect on the quality of the human environment,'” he said. “Given their size and appearance, I believe that DAS meet this standard.” The FCC should also deem as granted an application to site a wireless facility if a local government doesn’t act on a timely basis, he said. “There’s still a problem,” Pai said. “If a city doesn’t process your application within the 90- or 150-day timeframes, your only remedy is to file a lawsuit. In other words, the solution to municipal delay is litigation, which doesn’t exactly put you in that Internet fast lane I've heard a lot about recently.”