Possibly facing the end of the federal affordable connectivity program (ACP), the California Public Utilities Commission should quickly modify grant rules to ensure service stays affordable, said The Utility Reform Network in petitions Friday and Monday. “We don’t have the luxury of time here,” said TURN Telecom Policy Analyst Leo Fitzpatrick in an interview Monday. The state cable association slammed TURN’s proposals. But the California Emerging Technology Fund (CETF), a group that has led efforts to sign up low-income Californians for ACP, supports having “another opportunity to discuss the imperative for California to have a back-up plan to replace the” federal program, said CEO Sunne Wright McPeak in an email Monday.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., is pressing the Commerce Department over NOAA’s proposal for creating the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary off the coast of central California amid concerns over “new regulatory impediments” to permitting undersea fiber cable installations in that area. He noted NTIA’s role in implementing $48.2 billion in connectivity money from the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and contrasted that with NOAA’s evaluation of the Chumash NMS, which “envisions adding additional layers of dated bureaucratic red tape to the existing permitting process.” NOAA has acknowledged “‘several U.S. agencies have legal authority to regulate the laying and maintenance of cables off our nation’s shores,’ in addition to state regulatory requirements,” Comer said Friday in a letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. “Despite NOAA’s admission,” the 2011 undersea cable permitting policy the agency “proposes to use for the permitting of undersea internet cables in the Chumash Heritage NMS … has been so onerous that the Committee could not identify a single example of a new undersea communications cable deployed in an NMS governed under the policy.” Some “of the designated NMS sites across the U.S. protect areas that undersea cables might seek to simply avoid,” but “the proposed designation of the Chumash Heritage NMS would fill the last gap off the California coast already utilized by numerous cables for trans-Pacific connectivity,” Comer said: “Substantial cost increases for internet infrastructure connecting the U.S. West Coast to Asia and U.S. Pacific territories, delays, and new maintenance restrictions created by imposition of the 2011 permitting guidance under the Chumash Heritage NMS designation, if left unaddressed, will seemingly occur if NOAA moves forward without mitigating onerous requirements that empower bureaucrats but offer little benefit to marine environments.” NOAA “has proposed substantial revisions to its Chumash Heritage NMS designation as a concession to facilitate undersea electrical cables for offshore wind energy projects” but has “invested little time or effort into analyzing the impact of the designation on existing and potential future use of areas for undersea fiber-optic cables,” he said. Comer pressed Commerce to brief House Oversight about how NOAA and NTIA evaluated the Chumash designation’s impact on undersea cables. NOAA “will review the letter and answer the congressman through official channels,” a spokesperson emailed us.
The net neutrality draft order on the FCC's April 25 open meeting agenda (see 2404030043) will face much the same legal arguments as the 2015 net neutrality order did, with many of the same parties involved, we're told by legal experts and net neutrality watchers.
The California Public Utilities Commission plans to propose a decision in Q2 2025 on possible updates to the state’s deaf and disabled telecommunications program, Commissioner Darcie Houck said in a scoping memo Wednesday in docket R.23-11-001. The CPUC will consider whether and how it should modify program rules “in light of the changing communications landscape and participants' needs,” among other issues, it said. The agency will hold hearings and workshops from April to July and will collect more comments in Q4 this year, the memo said.
FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr on Thursday slammed the agency's draft order that would restore net neutrality regulations (see 2404040064). In a new statement, Carr said reclassifying broadband as a Communications Act Title II telecom service is "a solution that doesn't work to a problem that doesn't exist." He also pushed back on claims that Title II reclassification is necessary for public safety. The 2018 Mendocino Complex Fire in Santa Clara County, California, which Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel has cited as justification for net neutrality, "has nothing to do with the FCC's Title II net neutrality rules," Carr said, noting the fire department "purchased a data-limited plan that cost less than an unlimited data plan" and experienced a speed reduction "as outlined in its plan" when the department reached its plan limit (see 2404080068). The federal government "already has ample authority to advance its law enforcement goals without Title II" and the FCC has "identified no gap in national security that Title II is necessary to fill," Carr said.
Some Democrats warned they might join Republicans opposing a California digital equity bill when it reaches the Assembly floor. At a livestreamed hearing Wednesday, the Assembly Communications Committee voted 7-3, with one member not voting, to advance AB-2239 to the Judiciary Committee. The bill would codify in state law the FCC’s definition of digital discrimination (see 2402080068).
The FCC should make inventory spectrum available for free to “non-dominant” carriers to promote competition, EchoStar, the parent of Dish Wireless, told the FCC (see 2404090045). “Non-incumbent carriers (more specifically, every carrier other than AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon) should have a ‘right of first refusal’ to all Inventory Spectrum,” EchoStar said. The company also urged the FCC to address the lower 12 GHz band, as advocated by the 12 GHz for 5G Coalition (see 2312270045): “Substantial evidence in the record shows that fixed 5G services can provide broadband to tens of millions of Americans, while fully protecting existing non-geostationary orbit Fixed-Satellite Service and Direct Broadcast Satellite customers.” In another filing this week in docket 24-72, electric utilities said the approaches the FCC is examining don’t provide the certainty they need. “Currently, utilities have very few options for accessing spectrum -- particularly spectrum with the certainty provided by licensed exclusive-use -- and those limited options are increasingly insufficient in bandwidth,” they said. “The ability to access Inventory Spectrum presents one potential solution to the problem of spectrum availability.” The filing was signed by the Edison Electric Institute, the Utilities Technology Council, the Utility Broadband Alliance, FirstEnergy, Southern California Edison and the Southern Co. The Blooston Group of small and rural carriers said the best approach would be site-based licensing, which “would provide a simpler and lower cost way to promote access to spectrum in rural areas, and by entrepreneurs and smaller operators.” Third-party coordinators and licensee-to-licensee coordination “could be relied upon to minimize harmful interference between operators,” Blooston said. NCTA said the Lower 3, 7, Lower 37 and 12.7 GHz bands would be “perfectly situated -- both spectrally and technologically” for licensed-shared and unlicensed spectrum access frameworks. “A coexistence-based approach in each band would allow for efficient and cost-effective spectrum use by a diverse set of users, offer the fastest method of putting this spectrum in the hands of businesses and consumers, and enable federal and non-federal incumbents to continue providing critical services without disruption,” NCTA said.
Some Minnesota lawmakers want to craft a net neutrality law even as the FCC prepares to vote on restoring federal open-internet rules. At a Tuesday meeting, the legislature’s Senate Commerce Committee laid over a bill (SF-3711) banning state contracts with companies that violate open-internet rules. While the action indefinitely postponed further Senate action on the measure, the proposal remains part of a pending House Commerce Committee omnibus (HF-4077). Also at the Senate Commerce hearing, members postponed action on a social media bill and advanced legislation meant to stop copper theft.
FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel emphasized restoration of net neutrality rules to ensure public safety, during a Monday visit to the Santa Clara County, California, Fire Department. The fire department accused Verizon of throttling its service during the Mendocino Complex Fire (see 1808220059). "When firefighters are going into dangerous environments, they want to know that they have an internet that they can count on," Rosenworcel said. Although states like California have "stepped in and built their own net neutrality laws" since the commission's previous rules were repealed, it's "time that we have a national policy of internet openness," Rosenworcel said: "I think in the aftermath of the pandemic, making sure that there's a watchdog for the broadband connections we all count on, is the right thing to do."
The FCC’s net neutrality draft order got state support from California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) and the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates (NASUCA). Bonta's office said in a statement Friday that it supports “strong federal net neutrality rules that establish a floor of protection across the country.” The AG “especially applauds the draft order for acknowledging the important role states like California play in protecting net neutrality, and for declining to block enforcement of California’s own net neutrality law,” his office said. NASUCA praised the FCC draft for treating broadband as an essential service and leaving room for states. “The FCC correctly recognizes that there is a dual role for the federal government and states in addressing broadband and other essential services," and that classifying broadband internet access service "as Title II will enhance its ability to address public safety,” said Regina Costa, the group's telecom chair, in a Monday statement. NASUCA is glad the FCC declined to preempt California’s law or “all state authority over broadband,” she said. NARUC praised the draft last week (see 2404050068).