Mobility Fund Phase II Appears To Be Off Table at FCC, O'Rielly Says
There appears to be little interest at the FCC in a phase two of the Mobility Fund, Commissioner Mike O’Rielly warned a Rural Wireless Association meeting at CTIA Friday. “There is little discussion regarding a special technology-specific fund for wireless…
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providers,” O’Rielly said. “In fact, the commission already proposed to reduce the scope of previous outlines for a Mobility Fund Phase II and reallocate some funding to CAF [Connect America Fund] Phase II or the Remote Areas Fund, which signaled the waning interest in the program.” O’Rielly said the FCC should do more to simplify infrastructure build-out in rural America and elsewhere. The 2014 infrastructure order aimed at small-cell deployment was a “good start,” he said. “But we must expand upon the environmental and historic preservation exclusion to include small cell equipment that is installed on any structure, including those with no pre-existing antennas.” The FCC must also address “twilight towers,” built between March 2001 and March 2005, which weren't specifically required to go through the historic preservation review process, O'Rielly said. “We cannot afford to have these towers remain in regulatory purgatory any longer.” The FCC also needs to re-examine its technical rules in such areas as antenna height and power limits to see if the rules can be further liberalized to promote build-out in rural areas, O’Rielly said. He said the agency “gravely erred” when it decided to abandon the longstanding policy that designated entities must be facilities-based providers. “This is the only way to ensure that the bidding credits would go to small and rural businesses that would actually build and provide service using these licenses,” he said. “We are enabling DEs that act as mere ‘pass-throughs,’ leasing or flipping their spectrum to existing wireless providers. We are allowing a select few to get rich while large communications providers -- ineligible for the credit -- access spectrum at a reduced cost at the expense of the American taxpayer and legitimate providers seeking to use the spectrum to provide service to their subscribers.” O’Rielly’s remarks were posted by the FCC.