San Jose Mayor Mulls Legal, Political Options After FCC Wireless Order; Carr, Pai Defend

vision of our digital future.” Local governments expect to challenge the FCC order adopted Wednesday (see 1809260029). “The new FCC rules undermine the ability of local communities to negotiate fair, market-based broadband deployment agreements that benefit all of our residents,” he said Wednesday in a statement. Liccardo, who quit the FCC’s Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee in January (see 1801250049), is “not surprised by this result,” he said. “Rather than encouraging balanced, common-sense recommendations that advance equitable broadband infrastructure deployment, the FCC’s move will force taxpayers to subsidize industry access to publicly-owned infrastructure -- with no obligation to serve the 34 million Americans in low-income and rural communities who remain on the wrong side of the ‘digital divide.’ Thousands of students in cities like San Jose will continue to have to borrow their friends’ smartphones while huddling outside of a Starbucks in order to get access to a wi-fi network they need to do their homework, due to the unwillingness of the federal government and telecommunications industry to serve them.” Commissioner Brendan Carr's spokesman fired back: “There’s a reason why zero small cells were deployed in San Jose. It’s Mayor Liccardo. Under his leadership, as he puts it, San Joseans have been ‘huddling outside of a Starbucks in order to get access to a wi-fi network.’" Wednesday's vote "is a win for them and for Americans across the country who want better, faster, and cheaper broadband," he said. The FCC is doing its part to open a path for the U.S. to lead the world on 5G, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said in a Washington Post opinion piece. “The FCC has been aggressively making more radio waves available for Americans to use,” Pai said. “Last year, we concluded the world’s first incentive auction, in which spectrum once used by TV broadcasters was sold to wireless companies to expand bandwidth and coverage for consumers. We’ve scheduled the United States’ first two high-band 5G spectrum auctions, which will begin later this year, and we are on track to auction off three more bands next year.” Infrastructure is also critical, Pai said. “To deploy the hundreds of thousands of small cells and miles of fiber needed for 5G, we need to streamline regulations,” he said. “We will never realize the 5G future if we impose federal, state, local and tribal regulatory burdens designed for large towers on every single small cell.”