FCC Chairman Ajit Pai

FCC Commissioner Clyburn: “When it comes to the FCC’s commitment to expand tribal broadband, what’s the hold up? Chairman Pai repeatedly claims that closing the digital divide is among his top priorities, yet nearly a year has elapsed since a proposal was first put forward to help improve connectivity for Native communities and still no action. As my colleagues in the Majority are fond of saying, companies need certainty. I agree.

Feb 2 is Groundhog Day. Fittingly, I’m announcing an agenda for the Federal Communications Commission’s February meeting that revisits some familiar themes from the past year: modernizing outdated rules, closing the digital divide, and most significantly, promoting innovation.

[Commentary] Many officials, from California’s US senators to state public safety representatives, believe that the system for sending emergency alerts to phones needs to be improved. I agree. That’s why, on Jan 30, the Federal Communications Commission will vote on making the wireless emergency alert system more effective. 

In responde to a National Security Council memo urging the Trump administration to consider extraordinary efforts to clear the way for 5G, FCC commissioner responded:

On Dec 1, 2017, Sen Claire McCaskill (D-MO) wrote to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai requesting information about the steps the FCC is taking to recover forfeiture penalties it proposed four years ago against Lifeline carriers that had profited from violating program rules. 

On Jan 19, 2018, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai responded to various Members of Congress regarding the Restoring Internet Freedom Proceeding, who had raised concerns over the FCC's handling of the 50,000 informal complaints from the National Hispanic Media Coalition's FOIA request.

Today happens to be the one-year anniversary of the President appointing me the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. That marker meshes well with today’s proceedings, for a couple of reasons. First, the Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee’s (BDAC) work is critical to my top policy priority as FCC Chairman—closing the digital divide. A second reason why this one-year anniversary means something is that the BDAC reflects a core tenet of my policymaking approach: that the decisions we make inside this building must reflect input and fresh ideas from outside these walls.

On Dec 4, 2017, several members of Congress wrote to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai expressing deep concern about the "proposal to roll back critical consumer protections by dismantling...current net neutrality rules." Due to reports that bots may have interfered with the proceeding and reports that "50,000 consumer complaints seem to have been excluded from the public record", the members of Congress requested that the FCC delay its planned vote on the item until it could conduct a thorough review of the state of the record and "provide Congress with greater assurance

In recent weeks, we’ve seen broadcasters play a critical role in helping keep the American people safe. The purpose of today’s forum is to make sure broadcasters are best positioned to continue meeting this awesome responsibility. For my part, I’d like to briefly highlight some of the relevant issues we’re working on at the FCC. Those issues include (1) resiliency; (2) alerting; and (3) Next Generation TV. 

Emergency communications systems of all kinds shouldn’t be designed so that a single point of failure leads to a catastrophic result. Nothing and no one is perfect. Our emergency communications systems need to be designed to take account of these realities by having appropriate safeguards and redundancies.That’s why I’d like to briefly outline two areas in which the FCC wants to work with the NG911 Institute and others in the public safety community. The first involves best practices.