John Eggerton

House Commerce Committee Ranking Member Greg Walden (R-OR) and Communications Subcommittee Ranking Member Bob Latta (R-OH) agreed with Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai that the FCC's latest Sec. 706 broadband deployment report shows "significant progress" in closing the digital divide. "This report shows that the FCC’s efforts to reduce regulatory burdens are helping more Americans gain access to broadband and bringing us closer to finally closing the digital divide,” Ranking Member Walden said.

NCTA-The Internet & Television Association has proposed a three-step method for improving the broadband availability data the Federal Communications Commission uses to direct Universal Service Fund subsidy money:

1. Polygon shapefiles, instead of proposed address-based reporting, could be achieved  as early as 2020.
2. FCC to use crowdsourcing to backstop the reported data
3. Focus on pinpointing unserved areas, which the shapefiles will help do. 

House Commerce Committee Ranking Member Greg Walden (R-OR), Communications Subcommittee Ranking Member Bob Latta (R-OH), and Consumer Protection Subcommittee Ranking Member Cath McMorris Rogers (R-WA) wrote to Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone (D-NJ) and Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mike Doyle (D-PA) to engage on three network neutrality bills the Republican Reps have offered up, describing them as a "menu of options to get started" on a "bipartisan solution." 

The recently passed 2019 Appropriations bill (the bill that avoided a second government shutdown) was a massive tome that included directing the Federal Communications Commission to provide a "full analysis" of its treatment of market modification petitions. Those are petitions by broadcasters or satellite operators or county officials to modify a market so that satellite viewers in a Nielsen market that crosses state lines can get local news and sports from TV stations from another Nielsen market in their own state instead.

The major takeway from the House Communications Subcommittee hearing on the proposed T-Mobile-Sprint merger was that regulators are having to reconcile wildly divergent views of the impact of the deal. According to the various witnesses at the hearing on the deal:

The American Cable Association said a number of the Federal Communications Commission legacy regulations "frustrate the public interest by imposing anti-competitive burdens on smaller operators." That came in comments to the FCC on its latest biennial review of telecom regulations, which it is charged with reviewing and modifying or jettison ones that are not, or no longer, in the public interest. ACA is particularly focused on the regulations on implementing the Universal Service Fund.

Republicans signaled that they are offering up at least three versions of legislation that would reimpose network neutrality rules, but without doing so under Title II common carrier regulations they argue are a relic of the monopoly phone days. Democrats weren't jumping to embrace the bills while activist groups said those legislative efforts were, at best, woefully lacking and at worst fake efforts promoted by broadband industry lobbyist "shills." The bills are the Open Internet Act of 2019, introduced by Rep.

The Senate Commerce Committee drilled down on the 5G rollout in a hearing titled "Winning the Race to 5G and the Next Era of Technology Innovation in the United States." It was the first hearing of the committee in the 116th Congress, and the shadow of Chinese tech in US telecom loomed large over the proceedings.

Former Federal Communications Commission Chairmen Tom Wheeler and Michael Powell will be among the high-profile witnesses at the Feb 7 House Communications Subcommittee hearing on network neutrality. Others testifying include:

• Jessica González, deputy director and senior counsel, Free Press & Free Press Action Fund
• Denelle Dixon, COO, Mozilla
• Ruth Livier, actress, writer, and UCLA doctoral student.

At State of the Net, much of Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr's speech focused on 5G and on the "real challenge" from China, which he said has deployed 5G at five times the pace of the US -- a timely comment in the midst of the Huawei controversy. He stopped short of promising special consideration for US 5G projects, but he cautioned against establishing policy barriers. "I want to let the private sector compete" without restraints from local government agencies, on topics such as tower deployment, he said.