Clyburn Still Hoping for Phase II of a Mobility Fund in Coming Months
LAS VEGAS -- Commissioner Mignon Clyburn wants the FCC to move forward on a new mobility fund, to pay for wireless buildout in underserved areas. But an aide to Chairman Tom Wheeler said the agency still is considering only what to do next on the fund. Clyburn has been advocating a Phase II, building on Phase I launched five years ago (see 1510080024).
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
If your job depends on informed compliance, you need International Trade Today. Delivered every business day and available any time online, only International Trade Today helps you stay current on the increasingly complex international trade regulatory environment.
“I just left Arizona and New Mexico, mostly spent a lot of time on native land,” Clyburn said in an interview at the CTIA show. “There are still 100,000 people that still have a 2G experience.” These unserved areas can be found just a few miles from more built-out areas, she said. “That’s a public safety issue, that’s a user experience issue.”
Clyburn said she’s uncertain how large the fund should be. “All I know is there is a need here and I trust that there are enough people on the commission who feel the same way, who know that there are gaps that still exist and we will move forward,” she said. “This is what universal service is supposed to do, right? In principal, it is supposed to address the communications gaps that still exist.” Connectivity has improved in recent years, but problems remain, she said.
Clyburn acknowledged she has pressed for a fund for a long time. “I absolutely have because I know the job is not done,” she said. “We can have back and forths” on the commission on “if the job is done,” but 5 percent of the U.S. population still unserved by wireless is “not an insignificant number of people,” she said. “When we talk about 100,000 people with still 2G, I’m not going to turn my back on them."
The FCC is doing “a lot of thinking around” the need for a new phase for the mobility fund, said Edward Smith, wireless aide to Wheeler on a panel Wednesday. “The commission charged the Wireless Bureau … to spend a lot of time looking at sort of what is the need,” Smith said. “Where do we have areas that are unserved or that are being served only by virtue of subsidization?”
Commissioner Mike O’Rielly said he has been to the various wireless conferences and advised carriers not to put too much focus on a possible mobility fund. O’Rielly also laid out his position in a July blog post. “No one is talking about the mobility fund,” he told us. “If you’re going to spend your time, you should make yourself eligible for all the other things that are going on.”
“Serious questions should be raised over whether there should be a separate subsidy program for wireless carriers,” O’Rielly wrote in the blog post. “It seems illogical that we would have a technology-specific fund when the wireless and wired worlds are merging. Even the most objective person would see them as substitutes, rather than complements, which is backed up by user perspective and behavior.”
O’Rielly said he has no idea whether Wheeler will propose Phase II in coming months. “My history suggests things could change all of a sudden, but I don’t know,” he said.