FCC Chairman Pai Wants to Tweak Tribal Broadband Order

In a letter to New Mexico lawmakers, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai said that a tribal broadband order approved in 2018 wrongly cuts out certain tribal telecom companies in that state. This exclusion had been a source of concern for representatives like Rep. Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) about the FCC’s order, which allowed telecom companies serving tribal lands to get more funding to cover operational expenses. “After a thorough review of the record, I believe that it was inappropriate to exclude carriers that did not have 10/1 Mbps broadband service deployed to 90% of their service territory (like Mescalero Apache and Sacred Wind) at the time the Order was adopted,” Chairman Pai wrote, noting that he’s “directed staff to circulate an order in the near future to fix this mistake.”