Outlook Murky on Net Neutrality, Clyburn Says; She's Concerned About Infrastructure Rules
ORLANDO -- Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said the FCC mustn't ignore interests of state and local government as it moves toward new rules for speeding up the siting of wireless facilities. Clyburn also said she remains hopeful the FCC will retain some rules on net neutrality, Wednesday at the Wireless Infrastructure Association meeting, which also heard the agency may act soon on infrastructure-related rules (see 1705230057).
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Local governments have been prolific in raising concerns as the FCC considers rule changes that would speed siting decisions (see 1703100048). Cities also have raised concerns (see 1705220025) that there's only a single mayor on the Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee.
“It is my hope that we approach, and the next series of decisions that we make take into account, the interests of local communities as well as what the companies are attempting to do, the infrastructure they are attempting to enable,” Clyburn said in an interview. “All cities are not created equal.”
Clyburn noted she comes from Charleston, South Carolina, which has strict guidelines on all building issues in its historic district. “You need to take the culture of the community into account,” she said. “That sometimes might slow down not just siting for infrastructure, but painting your home.” Charleston allows homes in its historic district to be painted only a handful of colors, she said. It obviously has concerns with siting, she said.
The FCC should address companies and local governments that are outliers and don’t follow the rules on infrastructure deployment, Clyburn said. “We do not punish those who are really attempting to get to a middle ground.” If a company files an application that’s not complete, “the city is not the problem, you’re the problem,” she said. “If you put up something that you didn’t get permission for, the city is not the problem.” Some cities have only one person to handle siting applications and a backlog of hundreds of applications, she said. The FCC needs to take that into account, she said.
Cities are concerned they're underrepresented in BDAC and that needs to be addressed, Clyburn said. “We’re regulators,” she said. “We’re not supposed to tilt the scale one way or another.” No mayors want his or her city to be left out on broadband, Clyburn said. “It will make or break a community when it comes to attracting investment and capital.”
Clyburn briefly addressed net neutrality during her speech, which mostly focused on increased diversity in the infrastructure industry. “Hopefully, cooler heads will prevail” on net neutrality, she said. Clyburn said what will happen is tough to predict. “If I could see into the future, I promise you I would be richer, thinner and owning some tropical island,” she said. “I just don’t know.”
The FCC got the rules right when it approved the 2015 regulations, Clyburn told us. “We admitted that we don’t know what the future is going to bring,” she said. “We gave ourselves [an ability] to say if there’s a problem, we should have the dexterity to answer it.” Clyburn said the FCC remains flexible and shouldn't “lock itself” in a “rigid box.” It has to play a continuing role as a “referee,” she said.
The agency created uncertainty by reopening the rules on both net neutrality and ISP privacy, which could be harmful to investment, Clyburn said. “This privacy debate has got people upset,” she said. “I’m talking about the entire political spectrum.” People won’t stop using the internet “but they are in fear over what happens to their information,” she said. “That type of uncertainty is not healthy.”
WIA President Jonathan Adelstein told us he sees lots of momentum toward the FCC addressing siting issues. “We’ve never seen a more aggressive FCC in going after, eliminating unreasonable roadblocks to broadband deployment,” he said. “They are moving as quickly as possible to try to put in place a regime that will enable investment in broadband networks.”
Infrastructure month at the FCC in April (see 1704200046) “was not just a phrase, it was reality,” Adelstein said. “A good part” of the revised infrastructure rules are likely by year end, he said. “They got a lot of it queued up” as a result of the Mobilitie petition, he said. “That can get integrated into these new NPRMs that are out,” he said. “There’s been a lot of work done already laying the foundation for more rapid action by the FCC.”
Adelstein, a BDAC member, said the group is under pressure to complete much of its work in October. “That indicates to me [the FCC] wants to get that work done before they act,” he said. “That would presage a timetable of getting something done before the end of the year.”
WIA welcomes input from local governments on BDAC and elsewhere, Adelstein said. “The idea isn’t just to roll over them, but get rid of unreasonable roadblocks.” In Europe, regulators encouraged carriers to build out their own towers, which means tower farms on the high points of many cities, he said. “In the United States, collocation," is encouraged, "which is better for everybody,” he said. “It’s cheaper for the carriers than having to build their own and it’s better for the communities.”