Rules Can't Be the Same for Big, Small Carriers, Nsight Executive Tells FCBA
Companies like Nsight, a small wireless and wireline carrier in northern Wisconsin and Michigan, aren’t afraid to take on big carriers, but rules have to be different, Associate Legal Counsel Larry Lueck told an FCBA session on closing the digital divide Thursday. “When we talk about the digital divide, we live and breathe it every day,” he said. “We need to be treated differently because we don’t serve the big cities.” An FCC Wireless Bureau official said the agency is working hard to wrap up all the rules for a Mobility Fund II auction.
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For companies like Nsight, one of the biggest challenges is to convince Congress and the FCC that one size doesn’t fit all, Lueck said. One of the most important developments under the Pai FCC is that 2015 broadband privacy rules are no longer in effect, Lueck said. “We would have had to create a privacy dashboard that would allow our customers to toggle when we could share and use their data,” he said. “We don’t use their data.” Regardless, the company likely would have had to spend six months of tech time on building a dashboard, Lueck said. Small carriers already face tough competitive pressures, he said: “If you’re not the big fish, you’re fish food.”
Michael Janson, assistant chief of the Wireless Bureau, assured attendees the FCC is moving as quickly as it can to wrap up Mobility Fund II rules and hold a reverse auction. “We’re working very hard,” he said. Janson said he gets timing questions more than any others. “The commission and chairman’s office are very motivated to have this auction as soon as possible,” he said.
The eventual reverse auction likely will look like a typical FCC spectrum auction, with the same steps, Janson said. The agency approved the challenge process for the $4.53 billion, 10-year Mobility Fund II program in August (see 1708030026). On Wednesday, it sought comment in docket 10-90 on procedures and technical implementation of the MFII challenge process. Initial comments are due Nov. 8.
The U.S. has more than 9 million square kilometers of land and probably about 20 percent is uncovered by LTE, Hogan Lovells lawyer Trey Hanbury said of the challenge process. If 20 percent of those areas are subject to challenge and each challenge takes about an hour, “you’ll be working on the really fun challenges for about 52 years,” he said, to laughter. “We’d better get started.”
Chairman Ajit Pai was right to get out of Washington to see broadband deployment in action, said Jonathan Clark, Nielsen vice president-network solutions. In finding a solution to solving the divide, “we should be including the communities themselves … What is it that they feel is necessary for them to connect?” he asked. “I hope what came across is a strong advocacy for the average consumer, wherever they may be, and ensuring that those consumers have a voice,” Clark told us.
The growing global population speaks to the need for better broadband in rural areas, said Paula Boyd, Microsoft senior director-government and regulatory affairs. Estimates are that the world’s population will increase 2.3 billion by 2050, she said. Broadband connections can make farmers more productive to meet population growth, she said.
Microsoft has no designs on being a carrier, despite its push to use TV white spaces spectrum for broadband, Boyd said. “In five years, we will still be a cloud service provider,” she said. “That’s our core business.” Rural broadband is “challenging,” she said. There are 24 million unconnected people in rural America, she said. “That’s a pretty sizable population to be unconnected.” Broadband is important, but how it's used is what's really important, she said.