Upcoming policy issue

On December 21, 2017, the National League of Cities sent a letter to the chair of the Federal Communications Commission's Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee concerning filings made by a number of local government associations on broadband deployment. The NLC highlighted four points from the filings:

The Federal Communications Commission's decision toi repeal net neutrality was a major blow to internet freedom, but it’s only the first in a long line of actions that the FCC will take to tell itself that America’s broadband situation is better than it actually is. Up next: redefining high speed wired internet to include cell phone service.

Earlier this year, the Commission reinstated the UHF discount, finding that the prior FCC’s decision last year to eliminate it absent a simultaneous review of the 39 percent national cap effectively tightened the cap without determining whether that was in the public interest. Because the national cap and the UHF discount are inextricably linked, any review of one component of the rule must include a review of the other. Under the proposal that I shared with my colleagues today, we would go about determining the future of the national cap, including the UHF discount, the right way.

Sens Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Mike Lee (R-UT) released their bipartisan proposal to renew a powerful surveillance authority for collecting foreign intelligence on US soil, but with a new brake on the government’s ability to access the data. The bill would require government agencies to obtain a warrant before reviewing communications to or from Americans harvested by the National Security Agency under the surveillance authority known informally as Section 702. The measure stands little chance of passage.

If the Justice Department sues to block AT&T's planned acquisition of Time Warner, the challenge will likely raise novel legal issues, making one of the most ambitious antitrust cases in decades hard to handicap. In the typical merger case, the government challenges a proposed combination of two companies that directly compete.

Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley has launched an investigation into whether Google has mishandled private customer data and manipulated its search results to favor its own products and stifle competitors.

Through its deliberations, the Streamlining Federal Siting Working Group Working Group found that the fundamental concerns regarding the streamlining of federal siting are 1) predictability and complexity of the application process and accompanying requirements and 2) the application review time. The Working Group offers ten recommentations:

1. Challenge: Varying and unpredictable fees and rates.

Solution: Standardize and publish fee schedules and utilize revenue in a way that promotes expediting federal siting processes.

The Senate Intelligence Committee is planning on Oct 24 to debate in secret a bill that would reauthorize a powerful surveillance authority without imposing any new restraints on the FBI’s ability to search and use the communications of Americans gathered under that law in national security and criminal prosecutions.

The bill, drafted by Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-NC), would enshrine the FBI’s right to use emails and other data collected from US tech companies without individualized warrants in cases­ related to terrorism, espionage and serious crimes such as murder and kidnapping. The legislation is aimed at revising a law often referred to as Section 702, a portion of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act amended in 2008. It authorizes the government to gather the communications of foreign targets located overseas, a process that may incidentally sweep up the emails, phone calls and texts of Americans. The law is due to expire at the end of 2017.

[Commentary] Anchor institutions like schools, libraries and health care providers play an important role in bringing connectivity to their local communities. But advances in telemedicine and education will not be fully realized if rural consumers do not have adequate broadband service at home. School aged children will struggle if they cannot do their homework. Individuals with medical conditions that require active monitoring – diabetes, congestive heart failure and more – need broadband at home to transmit critical medical data in real time to medical professionals.

That is why local government officials and anchor institutions should be paying attention to the implementation of the Connect America Fund, now and in the years ahead. The FCC is working to hold an auction in 2018 to award nearly $2 billion in funding over the next decade from Phase II of the Connect America Fund to service providers to extend fixed broadband to unserved residential and small business locations, and a separate auction to award $4.53 billion in funding over a decade from Phase II of the Mobility Fund to mobile wireless providers to extend LTE service to rural America. Any entity willing to provide the requisite level of service set by the FCC and meet other requirements can bid in those auctions for the subsidy.

Local leaders should ask: is it possible to utilize funding in a more coordinated way from E-rate, the Rural Healthcare program, and the Connect America Fund to build a business case to serve the entire community? What efficiencies might be gained from building an integrated broadband network for the entire community? Are the service providers that currently participate in any of these FCC’s universal service programs planning to bid in these upcoming Connect America Fund auctions? Who else might bid?

[Carol Mattey is the principal of Mattey Consulting LLC, which provides strategic and public policy advisory services to broadband providers, governmental agencies, non-profit organizations, and other entities active in the telecommunications arena]