BDAC Chair Says Local Government Complaints Detracted From Group's Work

Local and state concerns “did detract, honestly,” from the work of the first BDAC, Bowles said. “I’m sorry to have to say that." High-profile resignations of Miguel Gamino, then chief technology officer for New York City, and San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo (see 1803300042) “created a narrative that was both unfair and had a lot of legs,” she said. “There were many, many times that industry didn’t win.”

Some municipalities and some news media were “predisposed to look at BDAC and say this is an industry-controlled body,” Bowles said: “If you’ve already got that bias going in, those high-profile departures just confirmed that bias.” The agreements reached were “not as interesting” and “not as fun to talk about,” she said.

The process became political the last time, Bowles said. Some members “did not cast a single yes vote,” Bowles said. “You can’t be opposed to everything, including the things that municipalities were advocating for. That’s obstructionist.” Groups that won’t participate lose any voice at the committee, she said. “Staying there, and duking it out, as many people did, they actually accomplished some of their aims.”

Bowles said local involvement is critical to the panel. “I have a lot of sympathy for the local control argument,” she said. “Local control is important.” But larger providers looking at deployment in hundreds of cities need a “standard that they can look to that they can comply with,” she said. “We have a few more people from local government,” she said: BDAC also now has two cable providers, a second wireless ISP representative and added T-Mobile to AT&T as major carrier members.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has been responsive to some local government complaints, said National League of Cities Principal Associate-Technology and Communications Angelina Panettieri. “I hope that we also see a higher degree of public sector and consumer interest participation in the working groups, although the rosters for those have not yet been made public.” Panettieri said the BDAC charter emphasizes regulatory barriers.

Local Concerns

Some local allies think the FCC may overdo it with attempts to cut municipal red tape.

“Not all barriers to broadband deployment or adoption are regulatory or imposed by the public sector, and to begin with that presumption unnecessarily limits the focus and scope of the BDAC,” Panettieri said: “As we saw with the previous BDAC, that focus on state and local regulations really predetermines the outcome of the committee’s recommendations.” The new areas of focus “offer more grounds for consensus than the previous” areas, she said. “I’m hopeful that this BDAC will produce recommendations that we are able to support."

New Street’s Blair Levin said the last BDAC did too much to “transfer dollars from the cities to the carriers with zero obligations on the part of the carriers, based on an economic theory for which there is no evidence for and lots of logic and evidence against.” Levin noted larger municipalities are sitting out the process. “Carriers are starting to realize that the backlash by cities against the carriers using the FCC to transfer funds may hurt the carriers in other ways, particularly as cities are potentially one of the biggest buyers of IoT and 5G services,” he said: “But I don't think adding more local representatives now will help them. Life doesn't work that way.”

“The BDAC should not be seen as a substitute” for the Intergovernmental Advisory Committee, emailed Best Best local government attorney Gerard Lederer: Pai “has done just that.”

The FCC didn’t comment Friday.

Busy Agenda

Bowles expects a busy two years ahead for the reconfigured group.

“The workload will be full. I don’t think it will be as full as the last time the BDAC was together,” Bowles said: “That was five different working groups and very meaty work, which I think will lead into or help inform this next iteration of work.” The current BDAC has only three working groups, she noted. “That’s much more manageable from a workload perspective,” she said, noting that in the last iteration, everyone was on at least two working groups.

The working group on disaster response and recovery started work in November and provided an update at Thursday's BDAC meeting (see 1906130035). Bowles hopes the other two groups, on increasing broadband in low-income communities and infrastructure job skills and training, will get started in July. “By September, we should have something fairly substantial to report out of most of the groups,” she said.

The work of the state and municipal code working groups was especially controversial last time. Bowles said it’s too early to say whether any of the work of the rechartered BDAC will be as contentious. “It’s hard to know until you really get down to the brass tacks,” she said. “There’s a certain group of recommendations that 100 percent of everyone can agree on.” All agree “everyone should have broadband,” but the details can create “friction,” she said.

Some arguments are good to get out in the open, Bowles said. “Honestly, if we don’t run into that friction, then we haven’t done our job,” she said: “We haven’t delved deep enough. … We haven’t asked the controversial questions. If it’s easy, then we’re not working hard enough.” Friction points “have to be resolved,” she said.

Small-cell provisions developed by BDAC were enacted in Georgia, West Virginia and Arkansas, Bowles said. Members were involved in all those statutes, she said. In Arkansas, her home state, the legislature repealed a ban on municipal broadband, substituting BDAC language encouraging public/private partnerships, and muni ownership of infrastructure, but not networks that compete with industry, she said. “That was directly out of BDAC.”

Big cities have “market power” in negotiating with the carriers; smaller ones don’t, Bowles said. The BDAC recommendations “gave a lot of control to the cities that they otherwise didn’t have,” and “a negotiating point” with industry, she said.