Pai: FCC Should Streamline Federal Broadband Deployment
The FCC should streamline the process for deploying broadband infrastructure on federal land, FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai said during a “Fireside Chat” at the Montana High Tech Jobs Summit Monday with Commissioner Mike O’Rielly and Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont. Streamlining deployment approval on federal lands could speed up the process of spreading broadband throughout the country’s rural areas, Pai said. “Ubiquitous broadband” is a key to helping rural areas compete in the global economy, Pai said. The commissioners also discussed disruptive innovation, net neutrality and the TV incentive auction. The event also featured a panel on spectrum and the wireless economy that included policy officials from Charter Communications and NAB.
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The process to get approval to deploy broadband facilities on federal land takes twice as long as it does elsewhere, Pai said. An easier process would speed broadband deployment, Pai said, saying the rules for broadband infrastructure should be updated to reflect advances in technology that allow physically smaller devices, such as small cells, to provide broadband access. The rules for small cells and giant towers shouldn’t be the same, Pai said. The most rural areas in the U.S. are likely to get their broadband access through wireless, O’Rielly said. Broadband infrastructure deployment is so important that the FCC may need to push to help it along, even though he would hope it could be addressed without commission involvement, O’Rielly said.
The FCC’s Open Internet rules “injected government into every aspect of how the Internet operates,” Pai said, saying he hopes the rules are overturned by the courts. The commission should trust private sector innovators on whether regulation is required, as the FCC doesn’t have the capability to regulate rapidly changing technology, Pai said. The commission’s ability to predict the direction of innovation is “problematic,” O’Rielly said. The FCC’s regulations for the Internet resemble older European regulations that have stifled progress there, the commissioners said. Europe has more competitors providing Internet access, but they do so at slower speeds than American ISPs do, O’Rielly said: "That’s not what we need in America.”
The incentive auction will be successful if broadcasters are able to have success after the auction, Pai said. The auction process for broadcasters “hasn’t been a fair process," O’Rielly said. The commission should make changes to the auction rules that will improve the prospects for broadcasters, O’Rielly said.
Congress should tell the FCC to do less, O’Rielly said. The commission’s current direction interferes too much with industry, O’Rielly said, and Congress should take action to reduce the commission’s power. The commission should “embrace disruptive innovation,” Pai said. The commission shouldn’t get in the way of new disruptive technology such as the ride hailing services Uber and Lyft, he said. “We shouldn’t be defending the buggy whip at every single turn,” Pai said.
To prevent wireless companies, broadcasters and others from fighting over spectrum, the FCC should make more of it available, said Verizon Senior Vice President-Federal Government Relations Peter Davidson during the spectrum panel: “One way to stop fights over scarce resources is to create an abundance.” Former NAB Executive Vice President-Government Relations Kelly Cole, now with Wiley Rein, compared the need for spectrum to the need for oxygen, and said broadcasters are trying to keep the FCC from making decisions “to the detriment of private industry.”
The chunks of spectrum for sale in the incentive auction will likely be too big for smaller, local ISPs to purchase, said Montana ISP Triangle Communications CEO Rick Stevens. He said large companies that buy chunks of spectrum containing areas they don’t find it profitable to build infrastructure in could still allow smaller companies with a local interest to do so. There's a role for the USF in encouraging service to underserved areas, said Charter Senior Vice President-Government Affairs Alex Hoehn-Saric. Scarce USF resources shouldn’t be used where there are already multiple existing providers, he said. If the FCC wants to make spread broadband access to rural areas, it should “stop doing stupid things” like passing Title II regulations, said Davidson.
Several panel members pointed to the IoT as a possible cause of future spectrum hunger. FedEx Managing Director-Air Operations Technology Jay Carlson said his company is seeking to create connected airplanes that could allow customers to watch video of their packages in transit, while Davidson discussed agriculture applications, such as a connected herd of cows: “All this flows over the wireless network."