Observers disagree on practical effects of states blocking government contracts with broadband service providers that don’t follow net neutrality principles. Democratic governors in New York and Montana last week issued such executive orders (see 1801240041), while California senators voted 21-12 Monday to pass SB-460 (see 1801300025). Supporters said tapping procurement could be an effective way to incentivize neutrality without conflicting with FCC pre-emption. Others said the approach might have unintended consequences like stopping FirstNet and could be pre-empted.
FCC Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Mike O'Rielly jointly proposed a list of expenses that rate-of-return telcos would be excluded from recovering through USF subsidy mechanisms and their consumer rate base. They hope such personal and other nonbusiness items will be included in a pending rate-of-return draft order (see 1801160040). Two rural telco groups involved in discussion with the commissioners back the effort and hope "consensus" action will clear the way for advancing broader USF goals.
President Donald Trump briefly highlighted his anticipated infrastructure legislative proposal during his State of the Union address Tuesday night, as expected (see 1801170054), but failed to mention broadband among the many types of infrastructure he intends to bolster. Industry officials and lobbyists told us they were disappointed and surprised, diverging on whether it's a bad omen for their push to strengthen a broadband title in coming legislation. House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., had expected Trump would at least touch on his broadband intentions (see 1801300051).
The FCC is expected to consider an NPRM on the future of spectrum above 95 GHz at its Feb. 22 commissioners' meeting, industry and agency officials said Wednesday. The commission asked initial questions about the very-high frequency spectrum as part of the July 2016 spectrum frontiers order and Further NPRM (see 1607140052). A tentative agenda is due out Thursday.
While staffers for FCC Chairman Ajit Pai aren’t signaling yet what he will recommend on the contentious question of what to do about priority access licenses in the 3.5 GHz citizens broadband radio service (CBRS) band, growing industry speculation is Pai will propose a compromise. Rather than auction all the PALs on a census-tract basis, or as much larger partial economic areas, the FCC would take a varied approach. It would offer some of the seven PALs in each market as census tracts or a similarly small license size and others as PEAs or possibly county-sized licenses.
The Port of Los Angeles and General Electric said they're interested in priority access licenses (PALs) that will be made available in the 3.5 GHz citizens broadband radio service band, in reply comments, but the agency must maintain the current smaller sizes for the licenses. In October, commissioners agreed to seek comment on revising rules in response to petitions by CTIA and T-Mobile (see 1710240050). In initial comments, most asked the FCC to make no changes or only modest ones (see 1712290016).
Parts of the tech industry came under nearly as much fire as sex traffickers Tuesday with an at-times heated panel discussion on the House's Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA)(HR-1865) vs. the Senate's Stop Enabling Sex Trafficking Act (SESTA)(S-1693). "I don't understand why you have these entrenched interests slinging arrows," said former federal prosecutor Francey Hakes.
Troubling online speech, from Russian political bots to hate speech, is a problem, said speakers at a Future Tense event Tuesday, but there was no consensus about what regulatory or tech company policy fixes would work best. "It's hard," said former White House technology and policy adviser Dipayan Ghosh, saying algorithms to take down problematic speech raise technological constraint and free speech red flags.
Members of the FCC, Congress and industry continued reacting negatively Tuesday to any planned nationalization of 5G networks (see 1801290034). Mike O’Rielly and Brendan Carr weren't briefed by the administration on the plan, they said after the commissioners' meeting. “It didn’t seem like it went very well yesterday,” O’Rielly said of the release of the National Security Council memo. O’Rielly said the band in which the government would build the network, 3.7-4.2 GHz, has been the subject of extensive work by him to make it available for commercial use. “Whether that’s sufficient for running a full 5G network is unclear,” O’Rielly said. The initial 5G trials looked at 5G in high-frequency spectrum.
The FCC acted to pave the way for a Connect America Fund reverse auction, starting July 24, of $1.98 billion in subsidies over 10 years for fixed broadband and voice services. Commissioners unanimously approved orders on remaining policy issues and a public notice on application and bidding procedures for the CAF Phase II auction targeting high-cost areas traditionally served by larger telcos. Commissioner Mike O'Rielly partially concurred on the orders and Commissioner Mignon Clyburn partially concurred on the PN.