The FCC adopted a one-touch, make-ready policy and other pole-attachment changes in a broadband infrastructure order and declaratory ruling approved 3-1 by commissioners at a Thursday meeting. The item also said the agency will pre-empt state and local legal barriers to deployment, including express and de facto moratoriums that prohibit entry or halt buildout. "No moratoriums. No moratoriums. Absolutely no moratoriums," said Commissioner Mike O'Rielly, who also noted some targeted edits to OTMR parts of a draft. Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel agreed with OTMR in concept but partially dissented over "deficiencies in our analysis."
Wireless Spectrum Auctions
The FCC manages and licenses the electromagnetic spectrum used by wireless, broadcast, satellite and other telecommunications services for government and commercial users. This activity includes organizing specific telecommunications modes to only use specific frequencies and maintaining the licensing systems for each frequency such that communications services and devices using different bands receive as little interference as possible.
What are spectrum auctions?
The FCC will periodically hold auctions of unused or newly available spectrum frequencies, in which potential licensees can bid to acquire the rights to use a specific frequency for a specific purpose. As an example, over the last few years the U.S. government has conducted periodic auctions of different GHz bands to support the growth of 5G services.
The two 5G items set for a vote by commissioners Thursday are expected to get 4-0 votes, FCC and industry officials said. The items are expected to be approved largely as circulated by Chairman Ajit Pai last month (see 1807110053). The items address the 39 GHz band and lay out the rules for the FCC’s first high-band auctions. They are important but “mostly noncontroversial,” said a lawyer with wireless carrier clients: “The fireworks might be reserved” for the infrastructure item (see 1807260036). The FCC didn't comment.
Key Republicans backed and Democrats attacked deregulatory FCC policies under Chairman Ajit Pai at a House Communications Subcommittee oversight hearing Wednesday. GOP leaders lauded commission actions to improve emergency communications, update media regulations and promote broadband deployment. Democrats blasted the agency's net neutrality rollback and other deregulatory moves as favoring big industry players and even complicating national security. Pai and other commissioners had provided prepared testimony (see 1807240056).
Any plan for the 3.5 GHz citizens broadband radio service band that doesn’t include census-tract-sized priority access licenses (PALs) likely faces a divided vote at the FCC. Commissioners indicated potential disagreements during a House Communications Subcommittee hearing Wednesday (see 1807250043). Chairman Ajit Pai said Commissioner Mike O’Rielly gave him analysis of proposed changes for rules for the band but no firm recommendations.
Senate Commerce Committee staff is eyeing ways to combine language from a set of bills on 5G and broadband deployments for potential committee action later this year, Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters after a Senate Communications Subcommittee hearing on fifth-generation. Lawmakers and industry witnesses invoked bills Wednesday they view as ways to help ensure the U.S. leads global development of 5G. Senate Communications members noted the race for U.S. dominance of the technology as a reason for the federal government to clear T-Mobile's proposed buy of Sprint and concerns that President Donald Trump's administration hasn't fully backed away from a proposal the U.S. build a nationalized fifth-gen network.
T-Mobile asked the FCC to clarify that it can bid in spectrum auctions independent of Sprint, despite its proposed purchase of the smaller carrier. T-Mobile said “pending merger agreements” with Sprint aren't a joint-bidding arrangement under FCC rules. T-Mobile said executives spoke with Commissioner Brendan Carr, aides to the other commissioners, Wireless Bureau Chief Donald Stockdale and others. “The Commission intended for the joint-bidding prohibition to be narrow in scope,” the carrier said in docket 18-85. “Over-broad interpretation of the term ‘post-auction market structure’ would create uncertainty over the permissibility of nearly any business decision with the potential to alter the wireless communications sector, in any way or degree. For example, a nationwide provider’s decision to cooperate with another nationwide provider on infrastructure deployment could be said to alter the ‘post-auction market structure’ of the existing wireless sector.”
The proposed auction of the upper 37 GHz band, to be looked at in a Further NPRM teed up for a vote at the Aug. 2 commissioners' meeting, would be the first in which the FCC would sell spectrum that licensees would hold on a co-primary basis with federal agencies. The FNPRM, primarily focused on the 39 GHz band, doesn’t fully address how this would work, though the issue was raised in an earlier proceeding. Commissioner Mike O’Rielly and some industry officials told us the auction raises potentially troubling issues on what exactly companies would be buying if they aren’t by themselves the primary licensee.
Pirate radio operators should watch out because the FCC will stop you, Commissioner Mike O’Rielly told a Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council conference Thursday. Commissioner Brendan Carr also spoke at the conference on a panel with O'Reilly, taking questions from former Chairman Richard Wiley of Wiley Rein.
Congress must do more to encourage rural broadband deployment, House Communications Subcommittee members said at a hearing Tuesday. There was general bipartisan agreement on the need to promote various technological solutions and on certain ongoing legislative efforts to remove deployment barriers. Discord was heard on federal infrastructure spending and municipal broadband.
FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly is keeping his plans for the 3.5 GHz citizens broadband radio service band close to his chest. O’Rielly said last week he has started to share his long-awaited proposal with Chairman Ajit Pai (see 1807120033). Some industry officials who favor smaller geographic license sizes for the priority access licenses that will be offered in the band are hearing that O’Rielly is proposing a plan similar to what was proposed by CTIA and the Competitive Carriers Association. Other industry and FCC officials urged caution before drawing conclusions but said the proposal seems unlikely to get the full support of the commission, especially Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel.