FCC Calls Free Press Slam of Response to Puerto Rico Hurricanes 'Terribly Misleading'

after the hurricanes. The FCC didn’t hold wireless and wireline carriers accountable for not building resilient networks or not responding quickly enough or sufficiently during hurricanes Irma and Maria, Free Press said. The FCC should form an independent commission to investigate, it said. “The disaster can’t be separated from the history of more than 100 years of U.S. colonialism in Puerto Rico,” said the report, “a history of wealth extraction, systemic racism and economic exploitation that left the islands’ critical infrastructure -- including the communications networks -- fragile and vulnerable.” It’s not fair that the FCC did a rigorous investigation of what happened after Hurricane Michael in Florida (see 1905090045) but not Irma and Maria in Puerto Rico, Free Press added. The commission disagreed with the report card. “It’s terribly misleading to claim that establishing a commission would be a more effective use of time and resources than the work we did and continue to do,” a spokesperson emailed. “This includes the analysis and report we already did on the hurricane, and the creation of the Uniendo a Puerto Rico Fund to provide short, medium and long-term funding to restore, harden and improve telecommunications networks in Puerto Rico. FCC staff and senior leadership have spent significant time working with local leaders to do everything we can to help in the recovery, resiliency, and eventually improvement of communications services for these hard-hit Americans.”