After FCC’s Busy May Meeting, No Orders Teed Up for June
After pushing through votes on a net neutrality rulemaking and three incentive auction orders at its May 15 meeting, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler scheduled more of a breather for the June 13 meeting. There are no orders on the agenda, only presentations on the IP transition and expanding community access to radio (http://fcc.us/SsmKt9). Meanwhile Friday, a Wheeler blog post put the IP transition in historic perspective.
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Commissioners Ajit Pai and Jessica Rosenworcel both went on the record before the May meeting asking Wheeler to delay a vote on net neutrality (CD May 9 p1). The FCC has yet to release rulemaking notices approved at the May meeting on service rules for the TV incentive auction and revised spectrum holdings policies. Industry officials said Friday most everyone is burned out after the May meeting.
"It does underscore that Commissioner Rosenworcel’s request to delay the open Internet item may have made sense,” said Andrew Schwartzman, senior counselor at Georgetown University Law Center’s Institute for Public Representation. “However, this is a chairman who wants to get things rolling, and he clearly felt that he was ready to go on the open Internet item as well as the spectrum items. July looks to be a busy meeting, including E-rate, but it is probably hard to accelerate any of the items so they could be done in June."
Free State Foundation President Randolph May said “it’s a bit hard to understand what Chairman Wheeler’s rush was to get the net neutrality item done in May rather than delaying the item to June as Commissioner Rosenworcel requested.” But May said he “wouldn’t want to make too much of one month here or there. I am much more concerned about the outcome of the proceeding. Or, to put it more directly, I am concerned the commission is moving ahead at all."
"This was, of course, precisely the point made by Pai and Rosenworcel: The FCC had a really busy agenda for the May meeting and a light one for the June meeting,” said Berin Szoka, president of TechFreedom. “It was foolish to rush the NPRM through for the May meeting."
"The agenda for June only backs up what Commissioner Rosenworcel was asking the chairman to do,” said a broadcast industry lawyer. “There is simply no reason the net neutrality paid priority proposal couldn’t have waited until June. Instead, you have at least two orders still waiting to be released from the May meeting because the staff is still working on them."
"Next month’s open Commission meeting will be highlighted by an update on our efforts to facilitate the transition from the circuit-switched networks of Alexander Graham Bell to a world with fiber, cable and wireless Internet Protocol (IP) networks,” wrote Wheeler (http://fcc.us/1ooR2YC). “Over the past six months, the Commission has taken many other significant actions to reflect the new realities of the Internet age.” Wheeler put the AWS-3 and TV incentive auctions at the top of his list, along with rules for spectrum sharing in the 3.5 GHz band. The FCC has also pushed forward on USF reform, text-to-911 and the net neutrality rulemaking, he said.