It always perplexes me at a time when solving rural broadband is a top priority that governments still create policies that are huge barriers to fiber construction. The newest story comes from the State Department of Transportation in New York (NYDOT). The agency has a permitting process that is adding tons of costs to fiber projects – including fiber projects that were funded by State broadband grants. The NYDOT requires an expensive process to get onto a pole located in State rights-of-way. A fiber builder must first request an official copy of the State’s existing mapping for each pole through the FOIL process – New York’s Freedom of Information Law. The process can be slow. For example, if the State intends to charge a fee for the record, the State must write to the internet service provider (ISP) to inform it of the fee before proceeding. Once an ISP has the official documents related to a given pole, it must apply for a permit to use the pole through the PERM75 permitting process, which must be done for every pole. This process adds a lot of time and expense to permitting and is completely unnecessary because nobody else in the country puts ISPs through these steps.

[Doug Dawson is President of CCG Consulting.]

Now that Democrats are back in charge of the White House, the issue of net neutrality and the threat of rate regulation has surfaced again. The big internet service providers (ISPs) have been trying to derail or delay confirmation of Gigi Sohn [Senior Fellow and Public Advocate at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society] as the fifth Federal Communications Commissioner because they know that one of the first actions of the FCC under Chairman Jessica Rosenworcel will be to reintroduce Title II regulation. The lack of a threat of rate regulation has allowed big ISPs to raise rates with impunity. The public is currently complaining about inflation due to supply chain issues, but the cable companies have been busy raising broadband rates at a pace that far outstrips inflation. In the recent confirmation hearing, Gigi Sohn said she was not in favor of rate regulation. I’m positive we’ll never hear the big ISPs publicly ask that question again because it will remind people about the impact of broadband on their pocketbooks. But I think we need to brace for another gigantic lobbying effort against rate regulation – disguised as arguments against net neutrality again.

[Doug Dawson is President of CCG Consulting.]

The Telecommunications Workforce Interagency Group (TWIG) will hold a kickoff webcast on March 8, 2022 at 11am (eastern). The webcast will feature remarks of leaders from the Federal Communications Commission, Department of Labor, the Department of Education, and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. The distinguished speakers will provide remarks regarding the importance of the TWIG’s mission and formally initiate the work of the group. The TWIG was created by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act1 to address the workforce needs of the telecommunications industry, including the safety of that workforce. No later than January 14, 2023, the TWIG will submit a report to Congress containing its recommendations to address the workforce needs of the telecommunications industry, including the workforce needed to build and maintain the 5G wireless infrastructure necessary to support 5G wireless technology.

SpaceX has withstood attacks from powerhouse competitors like Amazon in the internet space race, but now must overcome warnings from NASA that its fleet of second-generation satellites could hamper asteroid detection work. SpaceX wants to launch up to 30,000 satellites for its Starlink internet service to improve the speeds and service from the roughly 2,000 satellites currently deployed in its first-generation network. The company has begun building the second-generation satellites, or Gen2, in anticipation of launching as early as March 2022. However, it's facing headwinds at both the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Aviation Administration. And in a February 8 filing, NASA warned the increase in satellites could have "a detrimental effect on our planet’s ability to detect and possibly redirect a potentially catastrophic impact" from an asteroid because satellite streaks would likely appear on imagery used to detect asteroids. SpaceX has said its satellites are designed to automatically maneuver to avoid collisions and its system has been rated as trustworthy by NASA. Meanwhile, the FAA received a deluge of more than 19,000 comments when it sought feedback on its environmental assessment of SpaceX's Starship launch program in Boca Chica (TX).