An FCC on Hold

For the first time in my memory, the Senate does not have the votes to approve the nominated FCC Commissioner, Gigi Sohn [Senior Fellow and Public Advocate at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society]. This has meant that the FCC has been on hold and we’ve had a two-year deadlock between the two Democratic and Republican Commissioners on any controversial issues. There are a number of FCC initiatives that are on hold until there is a fifth Commissioner:

• The big issue is net neutrality, which says that there should be no discrimination used in delivering Internet content. But everybody understands that the real issue at stake in this discussion is the overall regulation of ISPs. Reintroducing net neutrality means having to reinstate Title II authority or some other similar mechanism to regulate broadband. Re-regulation of broadband is the issue that the big ISPs most strongly oppose. Broadband regulation could result in many new rules that big ISPs would hate, like perhaps outlawing data caps.
• The FCC has needed for years to increase the definition of landline broadband, which still sits at 25/3 Mbps. Equally out of touch is the definition of acceptable 4G cellular broadband set by the FCC at 5/1 Mbps.
• The FCC recently ordered broadband labels that are supposed to inform customers about their home broadband. The FCC got this authority through the IIJA legislation. But oddly, since the FCC doesn’t currently have the authority to directly regulate ISPs, the Commission can be stymied by ISPs that blatantly fail to honestly disclose the facts to the public.
• The FCC is considering spending up to $9 billion on subsidies to improve rural cellular coverage. It’s a great idea, but there needs to be a fifth Commissioner to make sure this isn’t just a handout to the giant cellular carriers and not another boondoggle like RDOF.
• There are probably not the needed votes in the current Commission to impose penalties against ISPs that continue to falsely report to the FCC mapping database.