Federal Communications Commissioner Geoffrey Starks said the “rosy picture” FCC Chairman Ajit Pai gave on broadband access needs to be reworked before the agency votes on its annual deployment report. Chairman Pai first teased the report in Feb 2019, saying he’d circulated it to his fellow commissioners and hoped to get a vote on it soon (commissioners can vote in favor of adopting the annual report or can dissent if they disagree with its findings). The report claims the number of Americans that lack access to broadband has dropped 25 percent — but Free Press said one new provider apparently overstated its reach enough to skew that data. Commissioner Starks said the provider, BarrierFree, is under FCC investigation and called on Chairman Pai to remove the report from circulation. “When you have the report that the digital divide is closing, and then you have — as alleged — over 60 million fraudulently, over-inflated numbers by BarrierFree, it seems to me that the only thing the chairman can do is take that report down,” Commissioner Starks said. An FCC spokesman said the agency is looking into the issue. BarrierFree’s Jim Gerbig said there was an error in the company’s filing with the FCC, and it doesn’t reflect the current level of broadband deployment. Gerbig said the company is working with the FCC to update its filing. “With the government shutdown in January, we were unable to submit revised documents before the full report went live,” Gerbig said.

On Feb 12, 2019 Sen Kevin Cramer (R-ND) introduced The Office of Rural Broadband Act in the Senate (S 454), which would establish an Office of Rural Broadband in the Federal Communications Commission. Sen Cramer’s Office of Rural Broadband Act is the latest effort to coordinate rural broadband planning and policy. As I recently wrote for the New York Times, this Office of Rural Broadband is best placed inside the Rural Utilities Service (RUS) of the US Dept of Agriculture, rather than the Federal Communications Commission, as S.454 proposes. RUS has a mandate to champion rural America, and has offices and divisions in every state. RUS understands the needs of rural communities better than any federal department or agency. Placing the Office of Rural Broadband here, rather than at the FCC, would also recall an earlier time in our nation’s history when we trusted USDA to connect our rural communities with electricity and telephony through the Rural Electrification Administration, the precursor to RUS. What S 454, its forerunners, and companion pieces of proposed legislation, demonstrate is not a lack of drive to solve the problem, but rather the political will to follow through. Legislation is proposed and funding allocated, but a centralized strategy to shepherd these initiatives through to fruition remains vexingly absent. The Office of Rural Broadband Act has the potential to do this, but for it to work, we need to give this dog both bark and bite.

Portland (OR) is suing the Federal Communications Commission for its wireless pre-emption order, which went into effect in Jan 2019 and limits local government authority to regulate how 5G small cell equipment is deployed. In Sept 2018, the FCC passed a wireless pre-emption order that it says will help streamline 5G small cell deployments and ensure that wireless carriers have low-cost access to public rights of way and existing support structures such as city-owned utility poles and street lights. The FCC has said the order was necessary to “help ensure the United States wins the global race to 5G,” by removing regulatory barriers that it claims would “unlawfully inhibit the deployment of infrastructure necessary to support these new services.” Wireless carriers have argued that a rapid 5G deployment will require rules to help carriers navigate the permitting process which varies across local governments and municipalities. This is a problem that carriers had to deal with when deploying 4G small cells. Portland's Mayor Ted Wheeler has called the FCC order a “land grab against local infrastructure.”

For Fiscal Year 2020, the Federal Communications Commission is requesting the budget and personnel amounts that are summarized in the bullets below:

• The Commission requests $335,660,000 in budget authority from regulatory fee offsetting collections. The requested budget level recommended by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) of $335,660,000 for FY 2020 is $3,950,000 less than the Congressionally authorized budget level of $339,610,000 included in the 2018 FCC Reauthorization in the Consolidated Appropriations Act. Also, the OMB recommended request level for FY 2020 of $335,660,000 represents a decrease of $3,340,000 or about 1.0 percent from the FY 2019 appropriated level of $339,000,000.
  • Prior to the passage of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2019, OMB approved up to $9.141 million in one-time IT investments for the Commission in FY 2020.
• The Commission requests $132,538,680 in budget authority for the spectrum auctions program. For FY 2019, the Congress appropriated a cap of $130,284,000 for the spectrum auctions program, which included additional funds to implement the requirements of the RAY BAUM’S Act of 2018 (2018 Act) that mandated significant additional work for the FCC related to the TV Broadcaster Relocation Fund (TVBRF). The Commission’s FY 2020 budget authority request of $132,538,680 is an increase of $2,254,680 or 1.7 percent, which represents only non-salary inflationary increases. This level of funding will enable the Commission to continue its efforts to: reimburse full power and Class A stations, multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs), Low Power TV (LPTV), TV translator, and FM stations for reasonable costs incurred as a result of the Commission’s incentive auction; make more spectrum available for 5G; and educate consumers affected by the reorganization of broadcast television spectrum. To date, the Commission’s spectrum auctions program has generated over $114.6 billion for government use; at the same time, the total cost of the auctions program has been less than $2.0 billion or less than 1.7 percent of the total auctions’ revenue.
• In creating a lean, accountable, more efficient Commission that works for the American people, the Commission requests 1,448 Full Time Equivalents (FTEs) funded by budget authority from both regulatory fee offsetting collections and the spectrum auctions program. This FTE level is the same as the level enacted by the FCC for FY 2019. With this FTE level, the Commission will continue to meet its mission demands in FY 2020.

The Federal Communications Commission is asking a judge to reject The New York Times Company's request for information about comments submitted to the agency in its 2017 net neutrality proceeding. The agency argues that the data sought by the Times -- including IP addresses associated with comments -- would compromise commenters' privacy. The FCC also says it can't provide the information sought by the news company without undertaking new research. In Sept 2018, the Times filed a lawsuit investigating possible Russian meddling in a proceeding that resulted in the repeal of the Obama-era net neutrality rules. The Times is seeking IP addresses, timestamps and user-agent headers (which could provide information about commenters' browsers) for all public comments regarding net neutrality submitted between April 26, 2017 and June 7, 2017. The newspaper argues that it's entitled to the information under the Freedom of Information Act. The FCC says it's entitled to summary judgment on the grounds that the information is exempt from FOIA laws, arguing that the agency's comment system isn't configured to provide that kind of data.