TDS has been taking every opportunity to talk up the Federal Communications Commission's Alternative Connect America (A-CAM) program and why the company is so excited about a possible extension to the program, even as the US gets set to award an unprecedented $42.5 billion for the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) rural broadband program. “A-CAM has been absolutely revolutionary for improving our hardest-to-serve rural areas,” said TDS Senior Vice President of Corporate Affairs Andrew Petersen. TDS is rather unique among publicly-held broadband providers in that it is eligible to participate in the A-CAM program, which was available only to rate-of-return carriers, most of which are small rural incumbents. The program is only open to incumbents and also excludes price cap carriers such as AT&T, Verizon, Lumen, and Frontier. The escalating need for faster broadband compelled TDS and other stakeholders to ask the FCC to extend the A-CAM program for an additional six years and raise the deployment speed target to 100/20 Mbps, which would match the speed target of the upcoming BEAD program. It’s worth noting that TDS also may prefer the A-CAM option because the company would not have to compete against other providers for funding as it would have to do under BEAD program rules.

The Federal Communications Commission quietly won two court cases over the last month that most folks have not heard about. A group of complainants brought a suit against the FCC, saying that the agency didn’t have explicit direction from Congress for the creation of the Universal Service Fund (USF) or the authority to delegate the operation of the USF to a third party. Years ago, the FCC prompted the creation of the non-profit firm Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) to administer the day-to-day operations of the $10 billion fund. The plaintiffs pleaded that the FCC didn’t have the constitutional authority to create the Universal Service Fund since that was not specifically spelled out by Congress; specifically arguing that the FCC was violating the nondelegation doctrine, a legal principle that says that Congress cannot delegate its legislative powers to other entities. The Universal Service Fund has always been controversial, and this is not the first challenge to its authority. There are a lot of people who don’t think the FCC should effectively have the power to levy a tax on telecommunications services, the primary tool for funding the USF. The FCC is careful to call this a fee, but to folks who pay it, the distinction between a fee and a tax is hard to see. The FCC is not entirely out of the woods, and there is one more similar challenge to its authority pending in the 11^th Circuit Court. 

In the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act (the Act), Congress directed the Federal Communications Commission to establish the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program to advance our national security by supporting the removal, replacement, and disposal of communications equipment and services produced or provided by Huawei Technologies Company or ZTE Corporation from our nation’s communications networks. I am now writing to keep you informed of the status of our work to administer the Reimbursement Program and upcoming deadlines under the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act and the FCC’s rules. As my prior correspondence noted, were the FCC to fund all reasonable and supported cost estimates in the approved applications, the Reimbursement Program would require approximately $4.98 billion, reflecting a $3.08 billion shortfall from the current appropriation of $1.9 billion. With July 15, 2023 deadline now less than three months away, the lack of an additional appropriation means that the FCC will need to plan to proceed with the prorated funding process described above. However, the Act does permit the FCC to grant a six-month extension of the removal, replacement, and disposal deadline for all recipients if the agency determines that the supply of needed equipment and services is inadequate to accomplish the Reimbursement Program’s goals. As of April 24, 2023, reimbursement claim requests have been submitted for 52 of the 126 applications approved for the Reimbursement Program, and the FCC has approved distributions of reimbursement funds for 38 of those applications, which now have deadlines to remove all Huawei and ZTE communications equipment and services ranging from September 29, 2023, to April 21, 2024, based on the initial distribution of funds to the recipients.

In a period of only nine days—April 25 to May 3, 2023—the the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced initiatives to look at unfair and deceptive acts involving AI and proposed banning Meta Platforms from targeting young users. These come on top of two years of antitrust aggressiveness and consumer protection assertiveness. But both actions beg the question, “Are the tools strong enough for the task?” Both the AI and Meta activities are indications of the limitations that FTC Chair Lina Khan and the agency face as a result of being tied to industrial-era statutes and procedures. Because there is no other agency to pick up the challenge—or other agencies are less creative and aggressive—the FTC has become the primary digital enforcer. We do not live in traditional times. As the only watchdog in sight, the FTC is right to apply its authority to protect the public against non-traditional threats. Fitting new realities into old statutes, however, can be awkward. What’s more, these efforts are an invitation for those who don’t like such protections to go to court to dispute the FTC’s authority. At a time when other Western democracies are stepping up to protect their citizens’ digital rights, the US needs its own set of digital protection tools—whether beefing up the FTC’s authority or creating a new, focused digital agency.

[Tom Wheeler is a visiting fellow in Governance Studies at The Brookings Institution. Wheeler is a businessman, author, and was Chairman of the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) from 2013 to 2017. For over four decades, Wheeler has been involved with new telecommunications networks and services.]

New York State Attorney General Letitia James (D-NY) secured $615,000 from three companies—LCX, Lead ID, and Ifficient—that supplied millions of fake public comments to influence a 2017 proceeding by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to repeal net neutrality rules. An investigation by the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) found that the fake comments used the identities of millions of consumers, including thousands of New Yorkers, without their knowledge or consent. Collectively, the three companies have agreed to pay $615,000 in penalties and disgorgement. This is the second series of agreements secured by Attorney General James with companies that supplied fake comments to the FCC. The agreements are the result of an investigation by OAG that uncovered widespread fraud and abusive practices surrounding efforts to sway the FCC in the agency’s 2017 net neutrality rulemaking proceeding. As detailed in a report by OAG, the nation’s largest broadband companies funded a secret campaign to generate millions of comments to the FCC in 2017. These comments provided “cover” for the FCC to repeal net neutrality rules. To help generate these comments, the broadband industry engaged commercial lead generators that used advertisements and prizes, like gift cards and sweepstakes entries, to encourage consumers to join the campaign. However, nearly every lead generator that was hired to enroll consumers in the campaign instead simply fabricated consumers’ responses. As a result, more than 8.5 million fake comments that impersonated real people were submitted to the FCC, and more than half a million fake letters were sent to Congress. 

[Net neutrality prohibits broadband providers from blocking, slowing down, or charging companies to prioritize certain content on the internet.]