NATOA Notebook: Rural Broadband 'Huge' Issue; Trump Package Fast-Web Funding Doubted; BDAC Improves
Rural broadband is “a huge issue all over the country,” said FCC Rural Broadband Auctions Task Force Chief of Staff Thom Parisi Tuesday on a digital-divide panel at the NATOA conference in Seattle. The group oversees the Connect America Fund Phase II and Mobility Fund Phase II reverse auctions, which seek efficient ways to get broadband to rural areas and together will award about $6.5 billion. The next step is a public notice laying out exact procedures for the CAF II auction, he said. The FCC is open to a variety of providers and technology types, he said. Chris Mitchell, Institute for Local Self-Reliance director-community broadband networks, said the CAF II auction “is possibly the only good part of the Connect America Fund.” During the Obama administration, the FCC “horrifically misspent billions upon billions of dollars” through the CAF, he said. “We really need to focus on approaches that connect everyone,” and avoid conclusions that people in rural areas will be satisfied with slower speeds, he said. In the U.S., “there’s no protection for where you live,” said Cheryl DeBerry, natural resources business specialist with Garrett County, Maryland: Rural areas “were left behind with rural electrification, they were left behind with telephone service and now they’re being left behind with broadband.” In 2011, the county got money from the Appalachian Regional Commission to explore community broadband options in areas where industry saw no business case, she said. Today, the county owns the infrastructure and uses TV white spaces to provide wireless service to 180 customers.
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NATOA Notebook
Panelists voiced doubts about getting much new federal funding for broadband through President Donald Trump’s potential $1 trillion infrastructure package. The infrastructure package may include broadband but is unlikely to dedicate a portion of the funds for that purpose, CNX CEO Brian Mefford said Monday. That means broadband applicants will compete for money with applicants for roads and bridges, he said. Mitchell said Tuesday he’s not holding his breath for the infrastructure package. Congress has struggled to pass anything big this year, and without adviser Steve Bannon in the White House, “I’m not sure there’s a major voice” for broadband or infrastructure, he said.
Despite hearing criticisms about FCC Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee membership, Mefford said he's “encouraged” by BDAC's work. He agreed not enough local representatives are on BDAC, but noted the working groups' compositions have been more expansive and representative: “Now, is the work product going to be universally embraced and heralded as the best policy ever to be created out of the FCC? Of course not.” But he said it has “provided a forum to help accelerate these conversations and to hear from people who are … in the trenches in this work every day.”
The FCC will use its authority to promote broadband deployment “to the maximum extent,” Wireless Infrastructure Association CEO Jonathan Adelstein predicted. Some BDAC working groups may make recommendations sooner than others, said Adelstein, a former FCC member who chairs BDAC's federal-siting working group. The two groups that most inform infrastructure rulemakings, related to barriers and access to existing infrastructure, may issue recommendations first since the FCC could act on the rulemaking by year-end, he said.