ASPEN, Colo. -- Rollout of next-generation wireless may take longer than some appreciate and customers may not immediately see the need to pay much more for it, some experts said. All on a Technology Policy Institute panel Tuesday agreed 5G will be used for things requiring low latency and high capacity and/or high speeds like telehealth and virtual reality, which some don’t see it as very profitable. They see progress narrowing the digital divide since the TPI panel on that subject a year ago (see 1708220036). Speakers mainly agreed smaller spectrum blocks can help such efforts when carriers expand rural broadband, answering a question from audience member ex-FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn.
The FCC Wireless Bureau posed 49 paragraphs of questions to T-Mobile on its proposed buy of Sprint. The FCC also asked Sprint for information spanning 48 paragraphs. Bureau Chief Donald Stockdale said in cover letters the agency needs more information to properly review the takeover. This appears typical of what's asked of companies in the middle of a similar big transaction, industry lawyers said. Both companies filed a public interest statement in June (see 1806190062). Many say the deal could face a tough time before federal regulators. The letters were posted Wednesday in docket 18-197.
Pointed questions on contested claims a May 2017 a distributed denial-of-service attack cause a breakdown of the electronic comment filing system and the recently aborted Sinclair buy of Tribune appear likely to be a major feature of the Senate Commerce Committee's Thursday FCC oversight hearing, communications lawyers and lobbyists said in interviews. The panel is expected to echo themes of the House Communications Subcommittee's July FCC hearing (see 1807250043), including a focus on 5G deployments and upcoming spectrum auctions. Chairman Ajit Pai and the other three commissioners are expected to testify (see 1808030014).
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."
Babette Boliek is a good choice as FCC chief economist, to oversee opening the Office of Economics and Analytics, said Jeffrey Eisenach, visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a job Boliek has also held. Eisenach noted some fear the new office will take the economists out of bureaus where they are “embedded” with the lawyers who “really” run the FCC. “While the ‘Siberia effect’ is a valid concern in theory, the FCC Order establishing the new office makes it unlikely by giving it real bureaucratic ‘throw weight,’ including specific responsibility for overseeing spectrum auctions and a requirement that the office review every rulemaking before it is released to the public and conduct a formal benefit-cost analysis of all major rules,” Eisenach blogged. It “has a fighting chance to ensure that future FCC decisions are made through multidisciplinary collaboration in which economic analysis plays a significant role,” he wrote. “That has often been the case at the Federal Trade Commission, whose Bureau of Economics dates to 1915.”
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.”
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.
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.
A Tuesday House Communications Subcommittee hearing to re-examine proposals to improve rural broadband deployments appears aimed in part at looking at what lawmakers can do in the next Congress given the limited legislative work time left this year, communications sector officials and lobbyists said in interviews. House Communications aimed to revisit the broadband proposals after recent FCC and congressional efforts (see 1807130065). A House Commerce Committee GOP staff memo notes language from several bills House Communications reviewed in January made it into the Repack Airwaves Yielding Better Access for Users of Modern Services (Ray Baum's) Act FCC reauthorization and spectrum legislative package (HR-4986), which President Donald Trump signed into law as part of the $1.3 trillion FY 2018 omnibus spending bill (HR-1625). House Commerce also cleared other broadband legislation recently (see 1803230038 and 1807120063).
The FCC will auction off three more high-frequency bands in the second half of 2019, Chairman Ajit Pai said Wednesday as he unveiled the items for an Aug. 2 commissioners’ meeting. Pai said the meeting will focus on 5G, with draft rules for the first high-band spectrum auctions targeted for a vote. Pai also tentatively plans votes on a draft order to adopt "one-touch, make-ready" pole attachments and bar state and locality moratoriums on network buildouts, a draft order on broadcast ownership diversification through incubators and a draft notice of inquiry on creating a $100 million telehealth pilot program.