Lauren Frayer

I’m honored to be here and grateful to you for your participation on the Advisory Committee of the World Radiocommunication Conference 2019, or WRC-19. This Advisory Committee is a crucial element in the preparation of America’s positions at the WRC. Your efforts will ensure that the FCC represents effectively a broad spectrum of views during international negotiations and in the course of domestic decision-making. I encourage you to continue to work together and find consensus as you develop draft proposals for WRC-19. I know that finding consensus on these issues is challenging, even here at home. But working in good faith, I’m confident that we can find it. And find it we must, for it’s critical that we present a clear, consistent message beyond our shores.

Unfortunately, it has come to my attention that there are serious flaws in Universal Service Administrative Company’s (USAC) administration of the E-Rate program—flaws that relate to the process by which schools and libraries apply for E-Rate funding and that are in fact preventing many schools and libraries from getting that funding.

The specific problem involves USAC’s development and roll-out of the online E-Rate Productivity Center (EPC). EPC implementation issues have created major headaches for applicants requesting E-Rate funding. The current state of affairs is unacceptable. I seek your unqualified commitment that USAC will administer the E-Rate program in a manner that fully complies with Commission direction; works for applicants and participants; and promptly apprises the FCC of all relevant information concerning implementation.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai issued the following statement on the announcement that Verizon Communications has agreed to purchase at least $1.05 billion in optical fiber from Corning Incorporated.

“The FCC’s top priority is closing the digital divide that has persisted for far too long. And the key to meeting that priority is setting stable, market-friendly rules that will lead to investment in online infrastructure. The FCC has already taken significant actions to promote greater capital expenditure on broadband deployment, from reducing regulatory barriers to wiser spending of federal subsidies for buildout. Later this week, we will vote on several proposals that would unleash major capital expenditures on next-generation networks. Against this backdrop, I’m pleased to see that Verizon and Corning have reached a $1.05 billion agreement under which Corning will manufacture and Verizon will buy up to 12.4 million miles of optical fiber each year. This agreement heralds the construction of ‘densified’ 5G networks that will benefit American consumers. It will create thousands of high-quality jobs building and laying fiber. And it will go a long way toward closing the digital divide. Going forward, the FCC will continue to focus on creating a regulatory climate that favors greater investment and competition. A forward-thinking approach—one that relies on market incentives, rather than the tired ideology of heavy-handed Washington micromanagement—is the best way to deliver digital opportunity to all Americans.”

[Commentary] Here’s what we know about Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai’s latest plans: He’s planning to erase the utility designation the Obama FCC re-applied to high-speed internet access carriers in February 2015 (following an unprecedented 10-year period of deregulation). In parallel, in an empty bid to pay lip service to the idea of an open internet, he wants to shift authority to the Federal Trade Commission...This move is not really about net neutrality: It’s about whether or not internet access is a utility rather than a luxury. If it’s a utility, it needs to be subject to rules, laid out in advance, about availability and quality. If it’s not, we’re saying we trust competition in the private market to protect consumers and ensure that everyone in the country gets world-class, open, nondiscriminatory internet access.

Chairman Pai is saying he trusts competition in the private marketplace. That’s nonsensical.

[Susan Crawford is the John A. Reilly Clinical Professor of Law at Harvard Law School]

The European Union is launching an unprecedented public consultation to find out what Europeans fear most about the future of the internet. A succession of surveys over the coming weeks will ask people for their views on everything from privacy and security to artificial intelligence, network neutrality, big data and the impact of the digital world on jobs, health, government and democracy. A dozen leading European publications, including the Guardian, are to publicise the surveys over the coming three weeks. Results will be compiled in early June.

“Science should be open and freed from its traditional ivory tower; to be discussed, submitted to critique and fed with new perspectives,” said Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European commission, adding that the consultation would “inspire fresh ideas about how to solve some of our society’s most pressing problems”. The project is being led by REIsearch, a non-profit initiative co-funded by the European commission. The aim is to give policymakers a better sense of public priorities in their decision-making.

[Commentary] The ultra high frequency (UHF) Discount is the zombie of media policy, likely to rise from the dead this week at the Federal Communications Commission’s April 20, 2017 meeting. The likely restoration of the UHF Discount raises interesting legal issues, since no one disputes that there the policy rationale for its adoption has long since disappeared. Those arguments will play out at the Federal Communications Commission and, perhaps, in the courts, but this post is about the colorful history of the UHF Discount and why restoring it would likely lead to vastly increased concentration of control of TV stations in this country. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has made plain that he intends to relax or repeal almost all of the Commission’s restrictions on how many media properties a broadcaster can own or operate. However, the very first item on his list, which he has slated for expedited consideration, actually restores a very important, if seemingly arcane, provision that his predecessor had deleted - the so-called UHF discount.
[Andrew Jay Schwartzman is the Benton Senior Counselor at the Public Interest Communications Law Project at Georgetown University Law Center's Institute for Public Representation]

[Commentary] Of all the explanations for President Donald Trump’s sudden foreign-policy about-face — from America First noninterventionist who coldly proposed to cooperate with Syrian president Bashar al-Assad to humanitarian interventionist of sorts — the one that makes the most sense is that supplied by President Trump himself. “That attack on children yesterday had a big impact on me — big impact,” he said the day after Assad allegedly launched a horrific chemical attack on civilians in northern Syria. “That was a horrible, horrible thing. And I’ve been watching it and seeing it, and it doesn’t get any worse than that.” President Trump saw something on television that upset him, so he cast aside his position and formulated a new one, which neither President Trump nor his advisers could articulate, driven by his newfound, apparently sincere, but diffuse outrage at the brutality of the dictator he had once touted as a potential partner against ISIS. The televised images of suffering overrode everything he had said about the issue for years.

The largest source of unpredictability in the Trump administration is the president’s addiction to television news. For good or bad, mostly bad, the herky-jerky logic of TV news coverage dictates the president’s strategy, or lack thereof. Previous presidents, most notably Ronald Reagan, became famous for their ability to manipulate television. Television manipulates Trump.

Three members of the Arkansas delegation, Sens Tom Cotton (R-AR), John Boozman (R-AR) and Rep French Hill (R-AR), are asking Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai to soften his proposal to deregulate the business data services market.

The lawmakers wrote a letter to Chairman Pai asking that he implement a “reasonable transition period” in the proposed rule so that small businesses can prepare for any price hikes that may result. “A transition period would create a window where all market participants could plan for price increases or the purchase of internet protocol (IP)-enabled equipment, shop for alternative service arrangements, and even solicit build-out proposals from potential market entrants,” the lawmakers wrote. “A reasonable transition would also enable service providers to adapt and remain viable in more markets than will occur in the event of a flash cut to new policies.”

The Federal Communications Commission approved Time Warner's sale of a broadcast station in Atlanta to Meredith, a transaction that could help speed Time Warner's planned merger with AT&T. The station that Time Warner is selling, WPCH-TV, for $70 million, is its only FCC-regulated broadcast station. It has other, more minor FCC licenses. Meredith has operated WPCH-TV for Time Warner since 2011. It was previously known as WTBS. Meredith said it was pleased the FCC approved the application and that it anticipated "moving forward expeditiously to close this deal."

Former Microsoft chief executive Steven Ballmer sought to “figure out what the government really does with the money. What really happens?” He plans to make public a database and a report that he and a small army of economists, professors and other professionals have been assembling as part of a stealth start-up over the last three years called USAFacts. The database is perhaps the first nonpartisan effort to create a fully integrated look at revenue and spending across federal, state and local governments. Ballmer calls it “the equivalent of a 10-K for government,” referring to the kind of annual filing that companies make. “You know, when I really wanted to understand in depth what a company was doing, Amazon or Apple, I’d get their 10-K and read it,” he said. “It’s wonky, it’s this, it’s that, but it’s the greatest depth you’re going to get, and it’s accurate.”