Chairman Wicker Looks Forward

Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-MS) said that modernizing the Communications Act "would be one of the committee's top priorities" over the next two years. “With all the growth in the technology space, the question is a fresh look and what updates are needed to foster continued innovation and competition."

Chairman Wicker also pointed to oversight of the FCC and said that he wanted to ensure the agency was doing all it could to promote broadband access in rural areas. He also said that he wanted to build on the progress of the FCC’s recent auction of AW-3 airwaves, which brought in nearly $45 billion to the federal government. “Our opinion is that the AWS-3 auction was not only successful, it was surprising successful,” he said. “We are hopeful that the incentive spectrum auction of lowband can be successful also,” Chairman Wicker added, referring to an even more complicated auction scheduled for 2016.