On February 3, 2017, the Federal Communications Commission informed nine companies that they will not be allowed to participate in Lifeline, a federal program that makes broadband internet access service more affordable for low-income consumers. The move came just weeks after the FCC informed these companies that they would be able to participate.
On February 3, 2017, the Federal Communications Commission rescinded a progress report on E-rate modernization. The following may be attributed to Amina Fazlullah, Director of Policy at the Benton Foundation:
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai circulated an order appointing Commissioner Michael O’Rielly to serve as the chairman of the Federal State Joint Board on Universal Service, the Federal-State Joint Board on Jurisdictional Separations, and the Federal-State Joint Conference on Advanced Services.
The Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service was established in March 1996 to make recommendations to implement the universal service provisions of the Communications Act. This Joint Board is comprised of FCC Commissioners, State Utility Commissioners, and a consumer advocate representative. The Federal-State Joint Board on Jurisdictional Separations was established in June 1980 to make recommendations with respect to any amendment of the Commission’s rules governing the jurisdictional separation of common carrier property and expenses between interstate and intrastate operations. This Joint Board is comprised of FCC Commissioners and State Utility Commissioners. The Federal-State Joint Conference on Advanced Services was convened in 1999 as part of the Commission’s ongoing efforts to ensure that advanced services are deployed as rapidly as possible to all Americans and serves as a forum for an ongoing dialogue among the Commission, state regulators, and local and regional entities regarding the deployment of advanced telecommunications capabilities. The Joint Conference is comprised of FCC Commissioners and State Utility Commissioners.
On Feb 1, Center for Technology Innovation fellow Nicol Turner-Lee moderated a panel discussion at Brookings with Commissioner Mignon Clyburn of the Federal Communications Commission and Commissioner Terrell McSweeny of the Federal Trade Commission that focused on what they would like to see as the primary agendas for these agencies going forward.
The commissioners expressed their views of how their agencies will proceed with pending decisions on network neutrality, consumer privacy, and expanding broadband internet access, along with potential challenges to each agency’s authority. Commissioner Clyburn asserted the importance of creating a more competitive and open broadband marketplace that increases access and availability for underserved populations. She also described a regulatory environment that advances new technologies, such as fifth generation (5G) wireless technology, in both rural and urban communities.
[Commentary] As one of his first actions in office, President Trump selected Ajit Pai to be the next chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. It was a phenomenal choice. Chairman Pai is a “lawyer’s lawyer” with significant experience in the field and, as such, is one of the most qualified persons ever to hold the post in recent memory. It is wonderful to see that hard work, expertise, and merit still matter in American politics.
The incoming chairman certainly has a lot on his plate. I would submit that among Chairman Pai’s most pressing concerns must be to repair the commission’s tattered reputation as an expert agency worthy of public trust. Pai’s predecessor, Democrat Tom Wheeler, had no regard for due process and no reluctance to lie to the American people to achieve political outcomes. As a result, there are growing calls to curtail—if not outright abolish—the FCC and to transfer those responsibilities to the Federal Trade Commission and other federal agencies. While changing market conditions warrant serious contemplation about the nature and scope of FCC oversight, it is also important that we not throw the proverbial baby out with the bath water simply because the Obama administration cavalierly abused the public trust.
[Lawrence Spiwak is the President of the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Public Policy Studies]
Reps Jared Huffman (D-CA), Mark Pocan (D-WI), and Rick Nolan (D-MN) introduced the New Deal Rural Broadband Act of 2017, an ambitious plan to connect every American home, business, and school to high-speed, reliable broadband internet that is based on Roosevelt’s New Deal rural electrification model. The legislation would expand access to broadband internet in rural communities in Huffman’s North Coast congressional district, and across the nation, through increased investments in broadband infrastructure, improved programs to support tribal communities in broadband development, and the establishment of a new Office of Rural Broadband Initiatives to better coordinate all Federal rural broadband deployment programs.
The New Deal Rural Broadband Act would:
Establish a new Office of Rural Broadband Initiatives to coordinate and centralize all Federal rural broadband programs;
Authorize $20 billion for new broadband infrastructure focused on rural communities and those without adequate access;
Authorize a new Tribal Broadband Assistance Program to support tribal communities in broadband deployment;
Improve and modernize the Telecommunications Loan and Loan Guarantee Program to increase eligibility, allow greater flexibility, and break down federal agency broadband “silos”;
Authorize the Rural Utility Service (RUS) to offer broadband grants in addition to loans and loan guarantees to provide small communities with the seed funds needed to compete in loan applications or develop commercially attractive proposals and increase overall (RUS) broadband investment from $25 million to $50 million annually; and
Establish an inventory of Federal and State assets on which a broadband facility could be constructed and;
Provide land management agencies with cooperative agreement and fee retention authority for telecommunications rights-of-way to leverage public lands for broadband deployment
Rep Doug Lamborn (R-CO) released the following statement following his introduction of two bills, HR 726 and HR 727, to defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and National Public Radio (NPR): "Republicans and the new Administration need to demonstrate that we take our fiscal responsibility seriously. American taxpayers do not want their hard-earned dollars funding superfluous government programs just because that is the way things have always been done. That’s why I have reintroduced two pieces of legislation to permanently defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and National Public Radio. CPB received $445 million during Fiscal Year 2016, and this money could be put to better use rebuilding our military and enhancing our national security.”
[Commentary] On January 26th, I interviewed former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler at Harvard Law School, where I teach. It was the day the new administration announced his successor, who will have very different priorities. We talked about network neutrality, telecom mergers, high-speed access, and the dangers that lie ahead under the next administration. I asked, "In the Trump administration, people are talking about stripping regulatory power from the FCC, and essentially taking the agency apart (including moving jurisdiction over internet access to the Federal Trade Commission [FTC]). 'Modernizing' the FCC is the lingo being used. What’s your thought about that?"
Wheeler said, "It’s a fraud. The FTC doesn’t have rule-making authority. They’ve got enforcement authority and their enforcement authority is whether or not something is unfair or deceptive. And the FTC has to worry about everything from computer chips to bleach labeling. Of course, carriers want [telecom issues] to get lost in that morass. This was the strategy all along. So it doesn’t surprise me that the Trump transition team — who were with the American Enterprise Institute and basically longtime supporters of this concept — comes in and says, 'Oh, we oughta do away with this.' It makes no sense to get rid of an expert agency and to throw these issues to an agency with no rule-making power that has to compete with everything else that’s going on in the economy, and can only deal with unfair or deceptive practices. Because we’re talking about one sixth of the economy. More importantly, we’re dealing with the network that connects six sixths of the economy."
[Susan Crawford is the John A Reilly Clinical Professor of Law at Harvard Law School]
Snap, Inc., the parent company of Snapchat, filed its IPO paperwork Feb 2, and there’s lots of information about the company and its business contained inside. The company is required to list the various risks and threats it might face as it attempts to grow, and while some of them seem obvious — the company points out that it doesn’t control the iOS and Android operating systems the Snapchat app runs on, for example — there’s also a pointed callout of potential network neutrality changes. They wrote, "If the FCC, Congress, the European Union, or the courts modify these open internet rules, mobile providers may be able to limit our users’ ability to access Snapchat or make Snapchat a less attractive alternative to our competitors’ applications. Were that to happen, our business would be seriously harmed."
According to the Writers Guild of America, East, the editorial staff of MTV News plans to unionize with WGAE, citing having to cover the Donald Trump administration as part of the reason.
WGAE cited a letter from the MTV News Unionizing Committee that said, in part: "Under the new Trump administration, we are acutely aware of how necessary our constitutional rights are, and how much we need legal protection." "There has never been a more critically important time in our lives to have the protections of a union, especially for those of us in media," the committee wrote, according to WGAE. "And there’s never been a more necessary time for MTV News to talk about music, pop culture, and politics with the teenagers of America. We need to do more than just pay our respects to the past. We need a seat at the table so that we can be the future of MTV News. Because we deeply believe in the mission of MTV News and in the rights of the editors, writers, critics, reporters, producers, and correspondents who make up our team, the majority of us have collectively decided to organize a union with the Writers Guild of America, East."
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